Testimony of the shrimper, whose name means “the Ocean”

Vincent Hostak

May 26, 2024

Pilot any gulf, it is always the same:

the sun chases the moon,

the moon chases the sun

and in the dark, shrimp move freely from the flounder.

Like a careless breeze, they flow into my nets.

By day or night, my name is Dại dương.

My name means “the Ocean.”

In every gulf, there is a bay 

and an army to chase my family away. 

We set course to Malaysia when Saigon fell, 

in Galveston we faced the Klan.

They burned our craft and called us “Cong.”

There is always a faster, meaner fleet

to my one boat and nine-mile limit.

When will the next armies come:

the importers, the commercial fleets?

I can only net and clean so many in a day.

As the prices fall, I plan my next migration:

sell the boat, buy chickens, work by day in dirt,

where my name will always mean “the Ocean.”

Vincent Hostak is a writer and media producer from Texas now living near the Front Range of Colorado south of Denver. His recently published poems are found in the journals Sonder Midwest and the Langdon Review of the Arts in Texas and as a contributor to the TPA. He writes & produces the podcast: Crossings-the Refugee Experience in America.

Domestic Arts

Betsy Joseph

April 14, 2024

My mother traded a degree from art school

and her life on the east coast

for a future in Texas with my dad.

Yet she still found art, I’d like to believe,

in her daily household tasks.

Most mornings would find her

sweeping our back porch steps,

leaves and twigs rising, scattering

and landing elsewhere,

leaving a clean area to study

as if a blank canvas awaited her brush strokes

of oil paint or pastels.

Perhaps it was then,

when it was time for my nap,

that she reached for her sketch pad

and quietly drew, an artist again—even if briefly—

‘til I awakened and my brothers, 

rowdy adolescents, entered the house

and the art supplies returned to the cupboard.

The artist’s soul assumed a maternal role once more,

furnishing snacks amidst all the chatter

of school and sports, a bit of roughhousing.

Donning an apron—not a paint-splotched smock—

my mother began humming while working her way

toward creative details of the night’s dinner ahead,

yet another labor of love.

Betsy Joseph lives in Dallas and has poems which have appeared in a number of journals and anthologies. She is the author of two poetry books published by Lamar University Literary Press: Only So Many Autumns (2019) and most recently, Relatively Speaking (2022), a collaborative collection with her brother, poet Chip Dameron. 

Maintenance Man, Austin Hospital, 1970’s

Chuck Taylor

April 7, 2024

“Go fix things,” my boss said when I

Became a maintenance man. “What things

Should I fix?” I asked. “You’ll find out

Soon enough.” And so I used my common

Sense to replace plugs and light switches,

To replace washers in faucets, to replace

Ballasts in fluorescent lights, to replace

The entire intercom when it failed so

The patient could always call the nurses

At the floor desk. I pushed my maintenance

Cart from floor to floor with all my tools

And parts, and soon got to know most

The names of most of the workers there.

Down in our basement shop I joked with

All the other fix-it guys, the plumbers,

Carpenters, electricians, and the elevator

Man who said he was old for an elevator

Man and still couldn’t get life insurance.

“Those damn counterweights in the shafts

Take my buddies out all the time, but the

Pay’s sure good.” I carry still the scar on

A left forefinger from when the band saw

Slipped in making a wooden letter sign

For the cafeteria. I even had my moment

In the sun, cradling an elderly lady till

ER came. She’d run into plate glass

Thinking it was an open hallway. It

Happened late when my brother workers

Had left for home. I carried gold tape

In my cart that I ran lines on the glass

So it’d never happen again. I only thing

I disliked about the job was the grey

Uniforms we were required to wear.

The pay was good. I did not feel grey.

Chuck Taylor's latest novel is "Hamlet Versus Shakespeare." He taught Shakespeare at Angelo State University. The novel turns the tragedy of Hamlet into an adventure and comedy. Taylor is retired from wandering and teaching and spends his time with books, friends, family, manuscripts, a dog, and household repairs.

Extending Her Contract

Milton Jordan

March 31, 2024

The Botanist on a Visiting Assistant 

Professor contract who shared our small 

Science Center office held a particular

interest in the regional grasses

covering our campus along a minor

tributary feeding the lower Brazos

and we asked her to focus that interest

on the thin grass cover of our infield.

What you have here, she said, is a hopeless case.

Without a total recomposition

this alkaline soil cannot support

the Coastal Bermuda you’re using

and Johnson Grass will take over in bunches

leading your best infielders to transfer.

She could not, though, resist the challenge,

and brought us, a week later, soil formulas,

contractors’ estimates with projected

schedules and her contract extension request.

Work began under her supervision

in early January and the Pirate

Nine played that season on a ragged 

city park field with loud visitor complaints.

A year later, after fall ball in the park

and February on the road, we started March

with a smiling shortstop fielding a clean

ground ball off her well-manicured green infield, 

an inning-ending double play, our Botanist 

exclaiming, This is a beautiful game! 

Milton Jordan lives with Anne in Georgetown, Texas. He co-edited the first Texas Poetry Assignment anthology, Lone Star Poetry, Kallisto Gaia Press, 2022.

Teach

Thomas Hemminger

March 31, 2024

Teach kids to read, 

but don’t use those books. 

Teach them the maps, 

but don’t let them look. 

Teach kids to count,

use this new way.

Make them sit down and be silent all day. 

Teach kids to reason, 

but don’t use the Greeks, 

(The AC won’t work, 

just don’t think of the heat.) 

Teach kids to think, 

but not for themselves.

Teach them what we say-- not anyone else. 

Teach kids to feel, 

but not on their own. 

Teach them reactions 

we say they can show. 

Teach kids affection, 

just don’t get too close.

Remember, it’s test grades that matter the most. 

Teach them to write, 

but buy your own stuff.

We don’t buy supplies, 

we pay you enough. 

Inspire all the children! 

Kindle their flame! 

Oh! If they fail, it is YOU that we’ll blame. 

Thomas Hemminger is an elementary music teacher living in Dallas, Texas. His work has been published locally in Dallas, as well as in The Wilda Morris Poetry Challenge, The Texas Poetry Assignment, and The Poetry Catalog. His personal hero is Mr. Fred Rogers, the creator of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. It was through America’s favorite “neighbor” that Thomas learned of the importance of loving others, and of giving them their own space and grace to grow. 

My Dad’s Texas Job

James Higgins

March 31, 2024

Charlie worked on cars

all his life, liked to run his

own shop, but took a job

as a foreman at a dealership

in Abilene (my mother’s

suggestion), was too

independent to stay long,

so back to Merkel & a shop

behind the Greyhound station

& domino parlor, across the

alley from the ice house.

He treated people well, had

an honest partner, each day

at closing time they “settled

up,” got their wallets out,

went over the jobs, traded

cash then and there.

Charley, had an 8th grade

education, didn’t stop

him from buying & learning

to use what he called a turning

lathe, got so good at it that

drillers from the oil fields

would bring a broken part

and a piece of steel in,

he’d get his micrometer

case out, measure things

then sit for hours with that

lathe turning out a new part,

stronger than the old one,

exact, as it had to be.

Yet, he’d still take the time

to answer a call, drive miles

out to some farmer’s hot field,

get that Farmall or John Deere

tractor moving so the farmer

could plant his crop.

It was a hard life, a lonely life

too, but it was the life he wanted

& the life he lived.

Born in Abilene, James Higgins spent the first fifteen years of his life in Texas, living in San Antonio during the school year, then spending most summers with his dad in the little town of Merkel, where both his parents were born. Two different worlds, city life vs. small town.