Andrew Borsoum is not interested in doing hipster-wannabe fashion shoots. His work is the furthest thing he could get from having “content.” Instead, his camera acts as a collector of textures, line contours and tonality, which he then composes by hand in the dark through a collage style printing process. Borsoum is not afraid of reduction. He encourages the eye to step  away from focusing on “what” the picture is about, but concentrates more on “how” it is placed within the image. Borsoum’s work plays, even tests the boundaries of multi-angularity and the inner layers of composition, so its not about what you see, it’s about how you see it.

Andrew Borsoum is not interested in doing hipster-wannabe fashion shoots. His work is the furthest thing he could get from having “content.” Instead, his camera acts as a collector of textures, line contours and tonality, which he then composes by hand in the dark through a collage style printing process. Borsoum is not afraid of reduction. He encourages the eye to step  away from focusing on “what” the picture is about, but concentrates more on “how” it is placed within the image. Borsoum’s work plays, even tests the boundaries of multi-angularity and the inner layers of composition, so its not about what you see, it’s about how you see it.

Andrew Borsoum is not interested in doing hipster-wannabe fashion shoots. His work is the furthest thing he could get from having “content.” Instead, his camera acts as a collector of textures, line contours and tonality, which he then composes by hand in the dark through a collage style printing process. Borsoum is not afraid of reduction. He encourages the eye to step  away from focusing on “what” the picture is about, but concentrates more on “how” it is placed within the image. Borsoum’s work plays, even tests the boundaries of multi-angularity and the inner layers of composition, so its not about what you see, it’s about how you see it.

Andrew Borsoum is not interested in doing hipster-wannabe fashion shoots. His work is the furthest thing he could get from having “content.” Instead, his camera acts as a collector of textures, line contours and tonality, which he then composes by hand in the dark through a collage style printing process. Borsoum is not afraid of reduction. He encourages the eye to step  away from focusing on “what” the picture is about, but concentrates more on “how” it is placed within the image. Borsoum’s work plays, even tests the boundaries of multi-angularity and the inner layers of composition, so its not about what you see, it’s about how you see it.

Elvis heads back into the kitchen, singing to himself as he walks, something he heard on the radio in the car. The screen door slams, he hums. Mary’s dress waves. He never wrote songs like that, but it’s good, he thinks, this new rock music, even though it was new ten years ago. He makes the pancake batter from scratch, from a recipe he knows by heart. He whisks the eggs into the flour with a couple of quick strokes, still humming, darlin’, you know just what I’m here for. That’s more his speed.

The pancakes sizzle on the grill and he reaches into the fridge, comes back with a crate of two dozen eggs and a slab of bacon. Two over easy with sourdough toast for Walter, in the far booth by the windows, and two scrambled for Howard sitting at the counter. The two men both come every morning like clockwork, have for years, but they’re still strangers to one another. Howard used to get his eggs over easy too, six years ago when he started coming here, but he complained and complained that they were never just right. Elvis finally told him it was scrambled or nothing, dammit, and Howard keeps coming back so the eggs must be okay.

Elvis wipes his left hand on his apron and pushes his hair out of his eyes. It went gray years ago and he hasn’t had sideburns in a long, long time, but he still keeps it a little longer than his mother, bless her soul, would have found acceptable. He looks great for his age, looks twenty years younger than he is. Good plastic surgeons are worth their weight in gold. People believe him when he says he was named after himself, like Elvis Costello. My mama was a big fan, he says. Yeah, he looks kind of like the real Elvis, it’s just a funny coincidence. He says he’s been thinking of becoming an impersonator, and he hasn’t, but he thinks it’s funny and he’ll sneer and say thankyouverymuch for his favorite customers.

Elvis died on that toilet in 1977. His heart stopped for ninety seconds before his live-in nurse rushed in when she heard the thud. He watched his own funeral from a hospital bed a week later, still high on morphine after the triple bypass, and in that state he said good riddance to all those people who were so sad now he was dead. Lisa Marie knows but Priscilla doesn’t, and he wishes she’d make better life choices, especially with men, but she’s his little girl so it’s okay.

He went to Graceland once, and he bought a ticket and was ready to go on the tour but at the last minute he stayed in the gift shop. He still remembers himself too vividly, the swagger and glitz of Elvis Presley, and he can’t bear to see how it’s faded in a decade and a half. Those gold records don’t shine as bright now, he knows, and the jungle room is probably dingy and mossy, the stains showing in the carpet. The television sets are relics, the stained glass gaudy. Instead he buys a clock of himself. His hips swing back and forth with the seconds.

The pancakes and eggs and bacon are done, so he shouts order up! over the counter and Shelley comes and gets it. The sun is shining through the front windows now, highlighting BACON AND EGG BREAKFAST $2.95 in a mirror image, splashing it all against the back wall. Elvis doesn’t eat that stuff anymore and has some yogurt and strawberries in the fridge. Soon he’ll be cooking five orders at a time for the breakfast crowd and then burgers, fries and turkey melts for businessmen, and by the time he closes at 3 p.m. he’ll be covered in grease and his feet will hurt but he’ll still know everyone by their first name. He can hit the gym before the evening rush, he’s trying to get off his cholesterol meds and his doctor says it’s looking good. For right now, though, both early customers are busy eating, Shelley is reading People magazine and the busboy is trying to nap with his head on the table. He takes a yogurt container out of the fridge and eats it while he watches the sun rise over Memphis.

______________________________________________

Alex Collins-Shotwell is currently an MFA candidate in fiction at the University of Virginia. Her work will be appearing in an upcoming volume of Mixed Fruit.

Now,

at twilight, the grasses in the field are green enough

to smell.

White-tailed jackrabbits dodging to the tree line.

Their skittish ears remind us we are not alone.

Hiding in the shadows of fallen-branch shelters,

they are the most patient.

Perhaps now they fold their narrow ears down

because they know we are here.

When I die, hide me

in a bed of upturned oak leaves and the softest dirt

you can find.

______________________________________________

Taylor Collier lives in Syracuse, NY. Work is forthcoming or has recently appeared in The American Poetry Journal, Blue Mesa Review, DIAGRAM, the minnesota review, Southern Indiana Review, Washington Square, and Yemassee.

the shudder of a jet

approaching louder,

but it could have been

the end of the world,

and it wouldn’t have

mattered. I was in

the kitchen, washing

dishes, soaring through

the window, the light

that brilliance right

before the mist takes

over, speakers sounding

a kind of blue almost

remembered. You were

here but not, close

enough where I could

turn my head to see

you somewhere

else. No dog clattered

worn tags on the linoleum

floor, a swell of

piano and engine

converging at

the exact moment

where my hands slipped

under filmy water, the crash

of glass on enamel

so much quieter

than I ever imagined.

______________________________________________

Marci Vogel attends USC’s PhD Program in Literature and Creative Writing as a Provost Fellow. Her work has been published in FIELD, Puerto del Sol, ZYZZYVA, Anti-, and the Seneca, Colorado, and Atlas reviews.