Scott M. Silsbe was born in Detroit, MI in 1978. Like his writing
mentors John Rybicki and Peter Markus, he grew up very near the Detroit
River. In April of 2000, he completed his undergraduate work at Western
Michigan University, having studied under Herb Scott, William Olsen, and
Stuart Dybek. In the fall of 2001, Silsbe will begin working on a master's
degree in Creative Writing at the University of Pittsburgh. Issue 12 of the
Notre Dame Review is his first national publication.

Beardman crawls into a blanket and jingles his body out the door onto the
snows of his boots. He skins out of his skin a bathtub and a bathtub key to
drive that bathtub through the snow. Beardman decides flannel will keep the
streets warm at night and so lines the curbs and sidewalks and doorsteps of
houses with the shirt off his back.
Beardman asks Smoothman for a corduroy suit and Smoothman brings a pen
and pad out of his suit and writes Corduroy suit, Corduroy suit, Corduroy
suit on every page, tears each page out and leaves them on the doorsteps of
the flannel city like little jars of jam, little Christmas boxes.
Rentman comes down from Renthouse and is terrified about his flannel
house. Rentman tugs on Beardman's footlong beard and waits and waits for the
beard until it finally does roll down the street and plays in all different
colors, jumping up the curb and skid-marking the sidewalk with alphabets and
miracles only beards speak and know.
Oh beard, beard, beard, Beardman says and the beard rolls on down, rolls
on down, rolls on down until it touches the interstate and decides Florida
would be a nice way away from the snow and flannel, and that Beardman can
trim his beard anyway, so what's the problem with a vacation.
Beardman, Smoothman, and Rentman are statued against the flannel of the
Renthouse watching Beardman's beard go, go, go, and Beardman doesn't know
what to say about the scissors he doesn't have in the blanket that is
blanketing him like a coat, and so Rentman tugs at Beardman's stringy hair
because why wouldn't we want the world to run in two directions?
Beardman's hair now runs up the sidewalk behind Beardman and ivy-crawls
the houses and is looping up and down the houses like a stringy
rollercoaster, and wants to learn about fire so jumps down a chimney and
curls around the coals, and singes itself and this stops Beardman's hair from
growing at the roots.
And that's when Rentwoman comes running out of the house because she
wants to jump onto Beardman's beard before he cuts it with the scissors not
in his pocket because she wants to ride Beardman's beard on the interstate
because who wouldn't want a free ride to Florida, what with all the snow and
flannel and growing beards and hair back at the Renthouse, by Rentman, by
Smoothman and that rather amusing Beardman with a blanket for a coat and a
bathtub for a car?

(first appeared in Prechelonian, Vol. I, No. 3)

Mozart sings out onto South Rose. He breathes out through sun-torn
blinds, sifts notes through a bending window screen, wheezing over and over
his own breath.
There is a pause that stops people on sidewalks, stops their feet
mid-air, over the silence. They stop and sink their eyes back, a full
vibrato sprawling out in front of them.
Cars screech and sway a musical stop. Drivers tilt their ears, spin
their windows down with left hands, and silently, in a lazy motion, lift
their elbows up into open car windows.
Mozart pulls people to his window in little tugs, fishlines tied to
their belly buttons. The sidewalk people lurch forward belly-first, eyes
closed or half-open.
Mozart's voice carries over the houses, tiptoeing fingers on rooftops.
From above, sunlight sparks off the fishlines that stretch out the window to
the sidewalk, to car windows, and to the other side of the street.

(first appeared in Raw Ether, No. 3)

I was palming my palm into the marble
of her back. The sleep was mirrored, Summer
Street in the snows. The clouds slipped pink and
interrupting. And her breath was an h flat on its
back, lips far from p.
It's alright, It's alright, I touched a
pulse's pulse. It was violent with her, this
dancing, this symphony. Hungry is right, she
said, Heaven is hungry as heaven.
That's when she told me it's the fear.
It's the slipping between the two worlds, the
hands pulling war, and the feeling of fingers
being bitten, through gloves.

(first appeared in Prechelonian, Vol. I, No. 3)