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​the Clark's Nutcracker, 
for which the Grand Canyon 
is a habitat, can remember 
the exact location of up 
to 30,000 pine nuts. Your 
memory is like this, but often 
I wish you could forget the
mistakes I've made, for I
have made so many
 

​​
​when naturally 
occurring, forest 
fires act as cleansing 
agents, fostering 
diversity, a richness 
of species, and lush 
vegetation. Human 
prevention of natural 
fires is the sole cause 
of "wildfires," which 
destroy vast swaths  
of land irreparably
and apocalyptically 
​​​sometimes I want to go 
back to these places, in 
better times. But there is 
so much of the world 
still left to see, and so 
many miles left to go. 
Besides, we were there, 
together, and that is 
​enough

​
​​Illuminating
​by Robert E. Heald

​
​We eat green apples and tortillas with peanut butter sitting on the rocks at Cape Final, a kind of peace offering between us after the last fight, an hour ago, when I stalked off with the only bottle of water to walk the two miles through pinewoods alone. You stand at the edge of the cliffs, spread your arms wide, and yawp into the blue expanse, startling a flock of birds from beneath you. Some things you do make me so nervous, but you’re doing it to make me laugh, and it works, and I love you for it. We walk together back to the Jeep parked at the trailhead, and you keep saying how much the woods look like someplace from Game of Thrones, like you say whenever there’s tall trees on all sides. On the way out of the park we stop at a Lincoln-log country store. While I pump gas, you buy a refrigerated egg sandwich that makes me gag when you open the packaging, and Fire-Chili Doritos. “Did you know Doritos have bat shit in them?” “Of course, everybody knows that. You ask me that every time I get Doritos.” You make me pull over every few miles so you can take pictures: bison in a field; shattered and blackened pine trunks where wildfire swept through; towers of rock you insist look like faces, though I don’t see them. The South Rim is only ten miles through empty space from where we sat and ate tortillas, but to get to the visible mountains beyond you have to drive two hundred miles around, down from pines through dusty gullied landscapes, red rock and sage. After driving an hour down the wrong highway while the day begins to fade, we eat burgers at Sonic before turning back. The food poisoning will hit me exactly eighteen hours later like the big rigs you careen into the wrong lane to pass, but right now I’m laughing at your joke about the name of this bum-fuck town. Later that night, you think I’m flirting with the check-in girl at the Motel 6 in Flagstaff. We fight, again. I spend a long time in the shower, crying and wondering if it ever ends. It doesn’t, and it won’t, but somehow we fall asleep while Arizona moonlight pours through slatted blinds, and when I wake whimpering from some nameless nightmare, you’re there, you’re right there, and you’re real.
  
I wanted you to have 
something to 
remember, something 
unbroken, but truth 
was always what 
mattered most to you, 
so I have tried to 
leave nothing out

​





​

​while not actually used 
in Doritos, guano, or 
bat dung, is highly 
sought after by organic 
farmers for its fertilizing 
properties. But some 
species of bats will 
starve to death when 
regularly disturbed, put 
into a panic state during 
their resting period
​

   
​     due to the volcanically formed 
     mountains in which Flagstaff 
     is located, the city is 2,000 feet 
     higher than the surrounding 
     desert. The youngest volcano 
     is less than 1,000 years old, and 
     so there is a high likelihood 
     ​that volcanic activity will occur 
     ​in the near future. It is 
     impossible to predict when and 
     ​where this eruption will occur. 
the Japanese art form of Kintsugi consists of repairing broken pottery with a lacquer
​mixed with powdered gold. No attempt is made to hide the breakage, and the fault-lines
are literally illuminated. Thus, an object is made more beautiful by having been broken ​

Born and raised in Atlanta, GA, Robert E. Heald graduated from Colorado College in 2014, and is currently an MFA candidate in the Helen Zell Writer's Program at the University of Michigan. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in River Styx, Cleaver Magazine, Reservoir, Assaracus​, and others.
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Issue 18: Summer 2016
ISSN 2157-8079
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