Map Literary: A Journal of Contemporary Writing and Art
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  • Poetry
    • Dennis Hinrichsen Poetry
    • Daniel Biegelson
    • Natan Last
    • Jim Daniels Poetry
    • Michael Chang
    • D E Steward
    • Benjamin Paloff Poetry
    • David Dodd Lee
    • Isabelle Doyle
    • Kathleen Heil
    • Leonard Kress
    • Lauren Tess
    • Cesca Janece Waterfield
    • Billy Cancel Poetry
    • Scott Minar
    • Greg Glazner
    • Bruce McRae
    • Maureen Thorson
  • Fiction
    • Dan A. Cardoza
    • Steinur Bell, "How to Measure Rain"
    • John Reid, "Frames"
    • J. Alan Nelson, "Re Matter of the Longhorn Skull and One Ball Buck"
    • Emily Trachtenberg, "Plum"
    • Hector Donovan-Gonzalez
    • Rich Ives, "Insect People"
    • Christopher Linforth, "Zia"
    • Marlene Olin, "Wanna Ride?"
    • Jenessa Abrams, "You Never Wish That Upon Anyone"
    • Rebecca Berg, "My Father's Daughter"
    • Kevin Sterne, "Wisconsin's American Zoo (WAZOO) Invites You to Pet the Meese"
    • Eros Livieratos, "On Feeling"
    • James William Gardner, "Lowcountry Boil"
    • Guy Biederman, "Sociale"
    • Sean Trolinder, "MLA Citation Gone Wild"
    • Rebecca Hannigan, "Little"
    • Halsted M. Bernard, "Your Hands"
    • Justin Meckes, "The Gash"
    • Reb Livingston, from "Bombyonder"
    • Craig Foltz, "Without Stigma"
    • On Experimental Fiction
  • Nonfiction
    • Cal Freeman, "Loosestrife"
    • W.F. Lantry, "The Strange Beauty of the Unfamiliar"
    • Michael Roloff, "Accretion"
    • Andrew Sunshine, "John Hancock's John Hancock"
    • Jay Merill "Cherry Red"
    • JM Farkas, "First Mindedness, Second Language"
    • Elizabeth Levine, "Gay Geography"
    • John Bliss, "Keep the Change"
    • Miranda Royse, "Disgusting Woman"
    • Elena Botts, "Ode to Oceans"
    • Diane Payne, "3 micro memoirs"
    • Luc Sante, "Flesh and Bone"
    • Isobel O'Hare, "Failure: A Love Letter"
    • Melissa Wiley, "Barbed Wire Fence"
    • Ashley Wilkinson, "fractional distillation"
    • Lori Hawks, "The Fix"
  • Art
    • Douglas G. Campbell
    • Edward Supranowicz
    • Mario Loprete
    • Jean Wolff
    • Toti O'Brien
    • Maria DeGuzman
    • Geoffrey Detrani
    • Keith Moul
    • Annabelle Schafer
    • Robin Schwartz
    • Billy Cancel
    • The Scientist
    • Tim J. Myers
    • Derek Owens
    • Leonel Piraino
    • Matthew Rose
    • Jacob Spriggs
    • Koji Nagai
    • Kristin Allmer
    • Limor Sadot
    • Ark Codex
    • Dahlia Elsayed
    • Yuji Hiratsuka, "Beet Meets Meat"
    • Kasey Ramirez, "Edifice"
  • Archives
    • 2018 >
      • Poetry 2018 >
        • Carlos Hiraldo
        • Martin Ott
        • Karyn Anne Petracca
        • Donald Illich
        • James Reidel
        • Dennis Hinrichsen
      • Fiction 2018 >
        • Rebecca Pyle, "Winter Solstice"
        • Martin Rutley, "Job Offer on Seventh Heaven"
        • Matthew Baker, "Superhighway"
        • Matthew Serback, "How to Make a Boulder"
        • Pavle Radonic, "The Laboratory"
        • Arkor Kolubah, "A Touch of Comfort"
      • Nonfiction 2018 >
        • Scott Wordsman reviews Petter Lindgren
        • Alexander Clark, "Postdiluvian"
    • 2017 >
      • Fiction 2017 >
        • Kathryn Holzman, "Eating Meat"
        • Kaitlyn Burd, "Nature with You in It"
        • Katie Young Foster, "Promotion"
        • William Cordeiro, "Selections from Whispering Gallery"
        • Alexandra Renwick, "The Life of an Artifact in Duodecadal Glances"
        • Lizzi Wolf, "My Brother's Therapist"
      • Poetry 2017 >
        • Keith Mark Gaboury
        • Mark Decarteret
        • Douglas Piccinnini
        • Matthew McBride
        • Jim Daniels
        • Sally Ashton
        • Raymond Farr
      • Nonfiction 2017 >
        • Charlie Moses, "Dear Friend"
        • Pamela Woolford, "This Is What Happened"
        • Jennifer Martelli, "Phobiacompendia"
    • 2016 >
      • Fiction 2016 >
        • Loie Merritt, "The Edge of the Sea is a Strange and Beautiful Place"
        • Mitchell Grabois, "i"
        • Kelle Groom, "25 Reasons to Attend the Gala"
        • Mike Shepley, "Killing Symbols"
        • Jody Azzouni, "Owning Things"
        • Dan Gutstein, "Like Airplanes and Stars"
        • Kate Imbach, "Diamondland"
      • Poetry 2016 >
        • Jeff Alessandrelli
        • Daniel Coudriet
        • Peter Leight
        • John Wells
        • Jenna Cardinale
        • Isabelle Shepherd
        • Michael Robins
        • Will Walker
        • Bridget Sprouls
        • Allan Johnston
        • Hugh Behm-Steinberg
        • Caroline Knox
        • David Dodd Lee
        • John Deming
        • David McLoghlin
    • 2015 >
      • Poetry 2015 >
        • Adam Clay
        • Kyle Hemmings
        • Matthew Henriksen
        • Megan Kaminski
        • Emily Kendal Frey
        • Noelle Kocot
        • Katy Lederer
        • John Lowther
        • Nathaniel Sverloff
        • Franz Werfel -- James Reidel
      • Fiction 2015 >
        • Erin Bedford, "Riesenrad"
        • James Braziel, "Jick's Chevrolet"
        • James Braziel, "Vittate"
        • Adrian Class, "Or Flights"
        • Erica L. Kaufman, "It Buried Us"
        • Nolan Liebert, "Gravity of Hearts"
        • Heather Noland, "Cosmic Slump"
        • Tom Whalen, "In the Cathedral"
      • Nonfiction 2015 >
        • Rebecca Cook, "What the Hammer Said When the Hammer Hit the Girl"
        • Margot Kelley, "Companion Species"
    • Fall 2014 >
      • Poetry Fall 2014 >
        • Stephanie Anderson
        • John Buckley and Martin Ott
        • Vanessa Couto Johnson
        • John Estes
        • Anne Gorrick
        • Henry Israeli
        • Keegan Lester
        • John Loughlin
        • Douglas Luman
        • Danielle Mitchell
        • Alexandria Peary
        • Marcus Slease
        • Georg Trakl / James Reidel
      • Fiction Fall 2014 >
        • Matt Rowan, "Dog's Best Friend"
        • Kelli Anne Noftle, "Before She Was Olive"
        • Chris Okum, "Ratatat"
        • Jon Fried, "Cashing In"
        • Lisa C. Taylor, "Visible Wounds"
        • Sarah Kahn, "Break"
        • Rebekah Morton, "Big Sis"
      • Nonfiction Fall 2014 >
        • Stephen Benz, "Night Then Morning: Elko, Nevada"
        • Joseph C. Jiuliani, "Of Stealing and of Being Stolen"
        • Lindsay Chudzik, "Jailface"
        • Robert D. Vivian, "Just After Rain"
    • Spring 2014 >
      • Poetry Spring 2014 >
        • Simeon Berry
        • Molly Brodak
        • Wyn Cooper
        • Brian Foley
        • Tim Kahl
        • Caroline Knox
        • Rob MacDonald
        • Benjamin Paloff
      • Fiction Spring 2014 >
        • Gareth David Anderson, "Cupcake"
        • Halsted M. Bernard, "Your Hands"
        • Patrick Cole, "Pick-up Lines"
        • Joshua Graber, "This Fine Experience"
        • Lola Grace, "Natural Birth"
        • Robert E. Tanner, "Non-Disclosure Disagreement"
      • Art Spring 2014
    • 2012 & 2013
  • Pedagogy
Picture

KELLI ANNE NOFTLE

Before She Was Olive

BEFORE SHE WAS OLIVE, she wanted to float the belief that life could alter dramatically. She would test it out across the baptismal pool, five feet deep, at three years old. She was small. She slipped under soundlessly.  Not so much as a splash. Less than a minute after—the interruption of heaven?—a stranger reached in and pulled her to the surface. Could she swim—not quite, she knew—against his hands—not yet strong enough to tear away the powder blue pinafore, a twisted lattice soaked and swaddled around her skull…

Frilly, almost doll-like.  They had to wring it out to find her body.

Her mother sobbed. Her father blamed the organ pipes. It’s nobody’s fault  someone repeated enough times for it to seem true. Only Catholics use real wine. Only good hymnals for God-fearing Protestants. Only believers hold these tasteless wafers on the tongue passing plastic trays with thimble-sized cups of thin purple juice. These, the symbols of redemption? More than just a metaphor for the body and the blood. It is not one person’s fault but it is everybody’s sin. They raised their hands above their faces. Lord we lift your name on high. The body and the blood. Lord we love to sing your praises.

And on that morning, after communion, nobody saw her wobbling toward the water behind the cedar pulpit. Or else not one body wanted to believe. In a living altar. And yet there he was, this man, a stranger, hoisting her into the air, the heavy pinafore hanging on her bones like soggy fur.

She had to wring out their voices in order to hear herself. Her own story, persisting with questions:

If the water fills you, do you stop floating?
If your head leaks, do you stop breathing?
Do you know what rain tastes like at the end of a tunnel?
If there’s a stone, how do you move?
Have you seen yourself in the length of the lake?
Does it get warmer closer to the edge?
You know what afterlife smells like?
How does it sound to breathe inside a hollow?
What if you’re already inside the shell?
How long do you float for?
How far?


Did you feel the dark place before?  
Is it a bubble you hold with your teeth?
Is it the surface that casts a shadow?
Do you trust yourself to go below?


This, the Olive before she was—this Olive of water, anointed by oil.  Olive as the Olive is alive today drifting in and out of sleepy memory-dream  in her bathtub with a glass of Red in her hands.

Before she was a person. Or had the idea to be one.

It wasn’t many years later (beliefs sink) that Olive’s mother fell in love with the minister of music. Her father caught them in the back of an old Buick, kissing.

If it breathes, Olive knew, it can surely drown.

The church became a gymnasium with chairs that folded into the walls and electric guitars buzzed and echoed. Their pastor continued submerging disciples, in a custom designed pool surrounded by tea light candles. Is there a life for this kind of alteration?

Buried in the likeness of His death, raised in the likeness of His resurrection.

The man, that stranger, who saved her life (or so everyone believed)—she learned he moved to China, delivering bibles to the communists. Olive never knew his name. 

Olive’s father told her (over five cups of very strong coffee):

She made you sing on Mother’s Day. You were six. You had a fever of one hundred and two.

Great is thy faithfulness

Near the pulpit, singing. There are so many things I can’t tell you. That morning…you see…that morning I had to…make her...it’s funny now but I can’t remember the song…

Morning by morning

I told her to drive you home, you were wrapped in a towel. I had to make her… learn compassion. It’s funny how the ones we love require mercy.

New mercies I see--

You were shivering, the Dodge minivan, we had a flat tire—you dropped the microphone I think—near the pulpit it was loud and hissing and all I could see—the parking lot—we couldn’t go anywhere…isn’t it something how the one you love will ultimately disappoint you?  

Thy compassions they fail not

The flat tire took forever and she was impatient she was not faithful so I hit her. On the face that time. I had to.

Great is thy faithfulness Great is thy faithfulness

No one could know. She made you sing because she said they wanted to hear you. On Mother’s Day. I said we would take you back home. Put you in your own bed. You were shivering but your skin felt like fire.

As thou hast been, thou forever will be…

I know now there are so many things I could never tell you. No one can know what will happen, what will be. It was so long ago. You were only six years old. You had a fever of one hundred and two.



AFTER HER MOTHER WAS GONE, one night, Olive saw Jesus coming back.  The sky lit florescent green, strangling the oak trees inside a thick neon pulse.  Everything outside the windows buzzed, covered in a radioactive slime. Her father said it must have been a nearby portable generator exploding. They’d lost electricity because of the ice storm. For almost five days they had to sleep downstairs next to the wood stove. Olive washed her hair in an iron skillet each morning.  The sky was apocryphal, hideous and for one half second Olive imagined she’d heard the tinny sound of miniature trumpets announcing His Return but everything went black again and the wood stove crackled its own music and she knew immediately she’d been left behind. It was the first big disappointment since her mother had moved to another town. Olive was on a losing streak—her second bottom tooth lodged inside a Granny Smith, their silver toy poodle given to a family friend—and this devastation, that He somehow missed her name or else purposely erased it from The Lamb’s Book of Life. The Son of God had no use for Olive either.






Picture
Kelli Anne Noftle’s first book of poems, I Was There For Your Somniloquy, was the winner of the 2010 Omnidawn Poetry Prize. She lives in Los Angeles and makes music under the name Miniature Soap. www.kelliannenoftle.com

published by
The Department of English
College of Humanities & Social Sciences
The William Paterson University of New Jersey
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Map Literary

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  • About
    • Masthead
    • Submissions
    • Rachel Wetzsteon Chapbook Award
    • In Print
    • Subscribe
    • Links
    • Internship Opportunity
    • WPU MFA
  • Poetry
    • Dennis Hinrichsen Poetry
    • Daniel Biegelson
    • Natan Last
    • Jim Daniels Poetry
    • Michael Chang
    • D E Steward
    • Benjamin Paloff Poetry
    • David Dodd Lee
    • Isabelle Doyle
    • Kathleen Heil
    • Leonard Kress
    • Lauren Tess
    • Cesca Janece Waterfield
    • Billy Cancel Poetry
    • Scott Minar
    • Greg Glazner
    • Bruce McRae
    • Maureen Thorson
  • Fiction
    • Dan A. Cardoza
    • Steinur Bell, "How to Measure Rain"
    • John Reid, "Frames"
    • J. Alan Nelson, "Re Matter of the Longhorn Skull and One Ball Buck"
    • Emily Trachtenberg, "Plum"
    • Hector Donovan-Gonzalez
    • Rich Ives, "Insect People"
    • Christopher Linforth, "Zia"
    • Marlene Olin, "Wanna Ride?"
    • Jenessa Abrams, "You Never Wish That Upon Anyone"
    • Rebecca Berg, "My Father's Daughter"
    • Kevin Sterne, "Wisconsin's American Zoo (WAZOO) Invites You to Pet the Meese"
    • Eros Livieratos, "On Feeling"
    • James William Gardner, "Lowcountry Boil"
    • Guy Biederman, "Sociale"
    • Sean Trolinder, "MLA Citation Gone Wild"
    • Rebecca Hannigan, "Little"
    • Halsted M. Bernard, "Your Hands"
    • Justin Meckes, "The Gash"
    • Reb Livingston, from "Bombyonder"
    • Craig Foltz, "Without Stigma"
    • On Experimental Fiction
  • Nonfiction
    • Cal Freeman, "Loosestrife"
    • W.F. Lantry, "The Strange Beauty of the Unfamiliar"
    • Michael Roloff, "Accretion"
    • Andrew Sunshine, "John Hancock's John Hancock"
    • Jay Merill "Cherry Red"
    • JM Farkas, "First Mindedness, Second Language"
    • Elizabeth Levine, "Gay Geography"
    • John Bliss, "Keep the Change"
    • Miranda Royse, "Disgusting Woman"
    • Elena Botts, "Ode to Oceans"
    • Diane Payne, "3 micro memoirs"
    • Luc Sante, "Flesh and Bone"
    • Isobel O'Hare, "Failure: A Love Letter"
    • Melissa Wiley, "Barbed Wire Fence"
    • Ashley Wilkinson, "fractional distillation"
    • Lori Hawks, "The Fix"
  • Art
    • Douglas G. Campbell
    • Edward Supranowicz
    • Mario Loprete
    • Jean Wolff
    • Toti O'Brien
    • Maria DeGuzman
    • Geoffrey Detrani
    • Keith Moul
    • Annabelle Schafer
    • Robin Schwartz
    • Billy Cancel
    • The Scientist
    • Tim J. Myers
    • Derek Owens
    • Leonel Piraino
    • Matthew Rose
    • Jacob Spriggs
    • Koji Nagai
    • Kristin Allmer
    • Limor Sadot
    • Ark Codex
    • Dahlia Elsayed
    • Yuji Hiratsuka, "Beet Meets Meat"
    • Kasey Ramirez, "Edifice"
  • Archives
    • 2018 >
      • Poetry 2018 >
        • Carlos Hiraldo
        • Martin Ott
        • Karyn Anne Petracca
        • Donald Illich
        • James Reidel
        • Dennis Hinrichsen
      • Fiction 2018 >
        • Rebecca Pyle, "Winter Solstice"
        • Martin Rutley, "Job Offer on Seventh Heaven"
        • Matthew Baker, "Superhighway"
        • Matthew Serback, "How to Make a Boulder"
        • Pavle Radonic, "The Laboratory"
        • Arkor Kolubah, "A Touch of Comfort"
      • Nonfiction 2018 >
        • Scott Wordsman reviews Petter Lindgren
        • Alexander Clark, "Postdiluvian"
    • 2017 >
      • Fiction 2017 >
        • Kathryn Holzman, "Eating Meat"
        • Kaitlyn Burd, "Nature with You in It"
        • Katie Young Foster, "Promotion"
        • William Cordeiro, "Selections from Whispering Gallery"
        • Alexandra Renwick, "The Life of an Artifact in Duodecadal Glances"
        • Lizzi Wolf, "My Brother's Therapist"
      • Poetry 2017 >
        • Keith Mark Gaboury
        • Mark Decarteret
        • Douglas Piccinnini
        • Matthew McBride
        • Jim Daniels
        • Sally Ashton
        • Raymond Farr
      • Nonfiction 2017 >
        • Charlie Moses, "Dear Friend"
        • Pamela Woolford, "This Is What Happened"
        • Jennifer Martelli, "Phobiacompendia"
    • 2016 >
      • Fiction 2016 >
        • Loie Merritt, "The Edge of the Sea is a Strange and Beautiful Place"
        • Mitchell Grabois, "i"
        • Kelle Groom, "25 Reasons to Attend the Gala"
        • Mike Shepley, "Killing Symbols"
        • Jody Azzouni, "Owning Things"
        • Dan Gutstein, "Like Airplanes and Stars"
        • Kate Imbach, "Diamondland"
      • Poetry 2016 >
        • Jeff Alessandrelli
        • Daniel Coudriet
        • Peter Leight
        • John Wells
        • Jenna Cardinale
        • Isabelle Shepherd
        • Michael Robins
        • Will Walker
        • Bridget Sprouls
        • Allan Johnston
        • Hugh Behm-Steinberg
        • Caroline Knox
        • David Dodd Lee
        • John Deming
        • David McLoghlin
    • 2015 >
      • Poetry 2015 >
        • Adam Clay
        • Kyle Hemmings
        • Matthew Henriksen
        • Megan Kaminski
        • Emily Kendal Frey
        • Noelle Kocot
        • Katy Lederer
        • John Lowther
        • Nathaniel Sverloff
        • Franz Werfel -- James Reidel
      • Fiction 2015 >
        • Erin Bedford, "Riesenrad"
        • James Braziel, "Jick's Chevrolet"
        • James Braziel, "Vittate"
        • Adrian Class, "Or Flights"
        • Erica L. Kaufman, "It Buried Us"
        • Nolan Liebert, "Gravity of Hearts"
        • Heather Noland, "Cosmic Slump"
        • Tom Whalen, "In the Cathedral"
      • Nonfiction 2015 >
        • Rebecca Cook, "What the Hammer Said When the Hammer Hit the Girl"
        • Margot Kelley, "Companion Species"
    • Fall 2014 >
      • Poetry Fall 2014 >
        • Stephanie Anderson
        • John Buckley and Martin Ott
        • Vanessa Couto Johnson
        • John Estes
        • Anne Gorrick
        • Henry Israeli
        • Keegan Lester
        • John Loughlin
        • Douglas Luman
        • Danielle Mitchell
        • Alexandria Peary
        • Marcus Slease
        • Georg Trakl / James Reidel
      • Fiction Fall 2014 >
        • Matt Rowan, "Dog's Best Friend"
        • Kelli Anne Noftle, "Before She Was Olive"
        • Chris Okum, "Ratatat"
        • Jon Fried, "Cashing In"
        • Lisa C. Taylor, "Visible Wounds"
        • Sarah Kahn, "Break"
        • Rebekah Morton, "Big Sis"
      • Nonfiction Fall 2014 >
        • Stephen Benz, "Night Then Morning: Elko, Nevada"
        • Joseph C. Jiuliani, "Of Stealing and of Being Stolen"
        • Lindsay Chudzik, "Jailface"
        • Robert D. Vivian, "Just After Rain"
    • Spring 2014 >
      • Poetry Spring 2014 >
        • Simeon Berry
        • Molly Brodak
        • Wyn Cooper
        • Brian Foley
        • Tim Kahl
        • Caroline Knox
        • Rob MacDonald
        • Benjamin Paloff
      • Fiction Spring 2014 >
        • Gareth David Anderson, "Cupcake"
        • Halsted M. Bernard, "Your Hands"
        • Patrick Cole, "Pick-up Lines"
        • Joshua Graber, "This Fine Experience"
        • Lola Grace, "Natural Birth"
        • Robert E. Tanner, "Non-Disclosure Disagreement"
      • Art Spring 2014
    • 2012 & 2013
  • Pedagogy