Wool Sweaters Research Articles

Performance of tapping washing in comparison with hand washing and front-loading machine washing for knitted wool sweaters

Wool fiber is widely used for clothing in our daily life due to its excellent physical and mechanical properties. However, in the daily laundry process, wool products can shrink severely by strong mechanical action in a warm and moist environment due to the fiber surface scales. Aiming to overcome the difficulty of washing delicate clothes such as wool and silk, Panasonic Intellectual Property Management Co. Ltd. invented a new washing machine for delicate clothes, based on tapping actions. The washing performance of wool sweaters in tapping washing is compared with that of hand washing and gentle and normal machine washing. The results show that tapping washing always gives wool sweaters the best appearance, dimensional stability and mechanical property up to 10 washing cycles. The changes in appearance and mechanical properties of wool sweaters are mainly due to the rate of felting shrinkage. By comparing the magnitude, duration, number of mechanical actions and direction of the forces acting on the fabric in tapping washing, hand washing and gentle machine washing, it can be concluded that the direction of forces acting on the fabric has a significant effect on wool fabric felting shrinkage, and unidirectional force has less effect on felting shrinkage than multidirectional forces. Tapping washing can give the lowest felting rate to wool samples because the forces in tapping washing on all parts of the fabric have a similar direction.

On Loving Clothes, and Preferring Not To

On Loving Clothes, and Preferring Not To

Reducing the Environmental Impacts of Garments through Industrially Scalable Closed-Loop Recycling: Life Cycle Assessment of a Recycled Wool Blend Sweater

Wool recycling has been practiced commercially for more than 200 years. This study used data from established, commercial processes with the aim of determining the environmental impacts of a recycled wool blend garment and the contribution of recycling to reducing impacts on the market for wool sweaters, in comparison to other emission reduction approaches relating to garment use. A cradle-to-grave life cycle assessment showed impacts of 0.05 kg CO2-e, 0.63 MJ, 0.58 L H2O-e and 0.95 L per wear of a recycled wool blend sweater for climate change, fossil energy demand, water stress and freshwater consumption, respectively. Impacts predominantly arose from garment manufacturing and consumer practices (retail and garment care). When a recycled wool blend sweater was maintained with best practice garment use and care, impacts were reduced by 66–90% relative to standard maintenance of a virgin pure wool sweater. Increasing the closed-loop recycling rate to 50% had the potential to reduce impacts for the wool sweater market 7–24%, depending on the impact category. Brands and consumers hold the key to increasing recycling rates and reducing environmental impacts via increased donation of garments for recycling and increased adoption of garments containing recycled wool.

Multimodal

Multimodal

Den egensinnige från Kittelfjäll

This article is a sports biography of Bengt-Erik Grahn, a prominent figure in Swedish alpine skiing during the 1960s. By discussing representations of Bengt-Erik Grahn in the Swedish daily press and comparing these with his own life story and memories from his time as an elite alpine skier, the objective is to study the cultural identities that appear in relation to his sports career. Bengt-Erik Grahn grew up in a Sámi family in Kittelfjäll in the Swedish province of Västerbotten and spent his early school years at the Sámi nomad school in Tärnaby. Due to his Sámi background and position as a representative of the Swedish national alpine team, the article focuses in particular on how identity constructs such as “Swedishness” and “Sáminess” appear in the source material. For instance, it is argued that his Sámi identity served an important function when Bengt-Erik Grahn was depicted as a Swedish sports hero. In addition, his Sámi background, meager way of life, odd sporting outfit (a hand-knitted wool sweater and hat) and profession as a forestry worker were all characteristics presented in the press coverage as distinguishing the Swedish sporting identity of amateurism from what was perceived as a jet-set and playboy mentality represented by the professional Continental European alpine skiers. However, simultaneously with this idealization, Bengt-Erik Grahn’s Sámi heritage was also used as a stereotype to explain his aggressive and risky tactics, which often resulted in crashes in the most important competitions. Bengt-Erik Grahn’s own life story in several ways offers nuance to the perceptions of the daily press.In particular, it reveals the challenges facing Bengt-Erik Grahn in his youth as he chose to focus on a career in alpine skiing. For example, there were strong expectations that a Sámi skier should devote him- or herself to cross-country skiing, which was considered a traditional Sámi sport at the time. Alpine skiing, on the other hand, was perceived as modern and alien to Sámi sports culture. In that way, Bengt-Erik Grahn’s odd and independent way of skiing appears in his life story as a demonstration of empowerment. Despite the prevailing culture, he chose the sport and how to perform it entirely on his own.

Triboelectrics power up

The trick of rubbing a balloon on your head to make your hair stand up has generated giggles for ages. But the electrical phenomenon behind the trick can also generate energy. Within the past decade, scientists have harnessed that energy to develop devices that could produce enough power for sensors, electronic devices, and—if deployed on a large scale—maybe even homes. The phenomenon, called the triboelectric effect, is the buildup of charge on dissimilar surfaces after they touch each other. Separating the surfaces creates a high voltage that can trigger a flow of electrons—hence those static shocks when you touch a doorknob while wearing a wool sweater. Charge builds up from skin rubbing against the wool and is released when metal is touched. Although scientists have known about triboelectricity for centuries, only recently have researchers been able to create materials and design devices to capture the current to produce useful amounts

Reducing environmental impacts from garments through best practice garment use and care, using the example of a Merino wool sweater

PurposeGarment production and use generate substantial environmental impacts, and the care and use are key determinants of cradle-to-grave impacts. The present study investigated the potential to reduce environmental impacts by applying best practices for garment care combined with increased garment use. A wool sweater is used as an example because wool garments have particular attributes that favour reduced environmental impacts in the use phase.MethodsA cradle-to-grave life cycle assessment (LCA) was used to compare six plausible best and worst-case practice scenarios for use and care of a wool sweater, relative to current practices. These focussed on options available to consumers to reduce impacts, including reduced washing frequency, use of more efficient washing machines, reduced use of machine clothing dryers, garment reuse by multiple users, and increasing number of garment wears before disposal. A sixth scenario combined all options. Worst practices took the worst plausible alternative for each option investigated. Impacts were reported per wear in Western Europe for climate change, fossil energy demand, water stress and freshwater consumption.Results and discussionWashing less frequently reduced impacts by between 4 and 20%, while using more efficient washing machines at capacity reduced impacts by 1 to 6%, depending on the impact category. Reduced use of machine dryer reduced impacts by < 5% across all indicators. Reusing garments by multiple users increased life span and reduced impacts by 25–28% across all indicators. Increasing wears from 109 to 400 per garment lifespan had the largest effect, decreasing impacts by 60% to 68% depending on the impact category. Best practice care, where garment use was maximised and care practices focussed on the minimum practical requirements, resulted in a ~ 75% reduction in impacts across all indicators. Unsurprisingly, worst-case scenarios increased impacts dramatically: using the garment once before disposal increased GHG impacts over 100 times.ConclusionsWool sweaters have potential for long life and low environmental impact in use, but there are substantial differences between the best, current and worst-case scenarios. Detailed information about garment care and lifespans is needed to understand and reduce environmental impacts. Opportunities exist for consumers to rapidly and dramatically reduce these impacts. The fashion industry can facilitate this through garment design and marketing that promotes and enables long wear life and minimal care.

What does static electricity has to do with schizophrenia?

IntroductionThe suspiciousness of a paranoid patient could reach extremes.ObjectivesTo present the lessons learned after an interview with a similar patient.MethodsCase report.ResultsFifty-two year old woman suffering from paranoid schizophrenia (F20.0). Symptoms almost identical to her previous (two) hospitalizations: delusions of thought reading and of being surveilled by electronic equipment in her house/neighborhood. This time, though, she was additionally convinced of being the object of medical experiments and of being electronically surveilled even within the ward. Treatment: risperidone 12mg/day, lorazepam 3.75mg/day, biperiden 2mg/day. Three weeks after admission, the author noted a slight tremor in her hands (most certainly of extrapyramidal origin). I asked her to place both hands in front of her, fingers wide open, to assess it better. The patient followed with the fingers attached, though. Consequently, I approached my hands to hers -to show how it should be done correctly-, touching them lightly. Then, a spark was generated between our hands. Evidently, it was an electrostatic discharge (I was wearing a wool sweater that day; static electricity could easily accumulate on wool). She became outraged: “what kind of experiments are you doing to me?”, “what electronic devices are you using?”, “this is the proof of what I have been constantly saying”.ConclusionsThe symptoms of psychotic relapses could evolve over time. A clinician should refrain from any strictly unnecessary physical contact with an exceedingly paranoid patient, particularly when the latter claims that is the object of “medical experiments”. The elaborative “ability” of such patients could be, simply, astounding.DisclosureNo significant relationships.

Blue Lights, and: Faces

Blue Lights, and: Faces Cate Marvin (bio) Blue Lights The night classes pour into asphalt lotsthat soon empty of their engines,the students seeming to dissolve like raindrops,the students seeming now to have been a hallucination that buzzed angrily for hours beneath fluorescent litceilings at poems like hands that refused to be heldor glittered their eyes at the kisses placed bypoems on their palms, longing for the vantage of multiple choice answers over these overturesof beauty and malignance. And the questionnot just once but again, again, What is it?They are all gone, the poems and their students, have left me to wander into this mist settlingacross the soft lawns this nether time of night,to walk solitary toward my car's lone smudge beneaththe morose lumens cast from corners of campus that have at them stationed lighted poles thatglow a chlorine blue, designated lightning rods for fear,bedecked with alarm buttons to run to forpressing, to send sirens out to saviors. When did these lighted poles appear, their beaconsutterly unreachable? Even spied from behindthe windshield, one apprehends a great distancebetween their stars and the bus stop's canopy, beneath which hooded students smoke onlyto disappear into the damp exhaustion of the night.Which is always when the deer appear, ornamentthemselves upon the lawns, frozen in mist, [End Page 81] taking on the stance of the startled, now startlinglypale, the four before me equidistant, and onetipping the pitcher of her head as if to pour the grassa drink or, considered upside down, suckle the milk from soil or nurse the grass's dew. My bag of booksthrown over my back like a bag of bones, my bagof poems a bag of stones, crushes my shoulderas I wade in mist toward the car, and the deer, who watch me as I watch them, seem a dream'sdecision to find me far outside the room I sleep in.They are an astonishment I do not wish to analyze.And I am certain if I move too quickly they will, spooked, run from me, or I am scared that if I do not run from themthey will stampede the meagerness that is me.The buck tumbling before my headlights.The scrimp of lawn in the mouth of the doe. [End Page 82] Faces I'm just like the rest of you, a run-out pen. Or like you,with the paper bag hat, waiting outside the library to get in. It's about to open, we stand facing the glassdoors at three minutes to ten. I can barely stand it. Like a tree, I'm dying from the inside, shooting leavestoward the light and making out like I'll be around for a long time to come. Only now my heaviest branchdrops, splintering its huge, damp shard on the drive, causing everyone to sigh their gladness that no onewas standing on that very spot, as if anyone would ever happen to be standing beneath me, waiting forme to do something. It's my doing nothing you come to trust. But mine is an acrimonious relationship withtime. It feels like a wool sweater, or like the damp squeezed out of a sweater, or like a sweater, period.Clamped in the damp, ministering the body through doorways, shielding the points of elbows from knivesof furniture corners. This is a dangerous world. Even though I keep spooling out the gradual yo-yo of myshadow along the walk with the tenderness a snail invokes as it peers, gentle out of its shell, you know itcould freeze at any minute, all the ice that drips from my eyes to the concrete, tears striking countenanceslike shards hit glass doors, like hail, like exclamation points from the sky or eyes: I see you! Coming aroundthat corner, smile like a knife, ready to steal my life. [End Page 83] Cate Marvin Cate Marvin's fourth book of poems, Event Horizon, is forthcoming from Copper Canyon Press in 2022. She teaches English at the College of Staten...

Environmental and social performance of valorizing waste wool for sweater production

Abstract The clothing industry has been active in recent years to develop more sustainable and circular business models, with extensive attention to fossil fibers and cotton, although wool has received little academic attention. This study follows the valorization process of conventionally discarded wool from a sheep farm in Sweden to produce a wool sweater. The aim is to highlight important environmental and social hotspots for valorizing the waste wool in a new supply chain for the clothing company. The study employs life cycle assessment (LCA) and social life cycle assessment (SLCA) with the PSILCA database to assess different supply chains. The LCA results illustrate that the supply chain valorizing waste wool significantly reduces environmental impacts compared to conventional supply chains of merino wool. The processing of the wool and sweater assembly contribute to the largest share of the environmental impacts and are sensitive to the choice of electricity mix employed for processing and manufacturing. The results from the SLCA suggest that the supply chains involving primarily European producers have fewer social risks than the conventional supply chains for wool. Large social risks are present in the shipping between production sites in Europe, and manufacturing facilities for the wool garments, pointing to the care required to ensure social responsibility along the supply chain. The SLCA results are sensitive to the cost assumptions made for activities along the supply chain. The results provide empirical evidence and highlight areas to improve the environmental and social implications for developing a new circular supply chain.

Old Dogs, and: Chiaroscuro, and: Every Leaving

Old Dogs, and: Chiaroscuro, and: Every Leaving Jane Sasser (bio) OLD DOGS Over millennia, water and silicaseep into cells, until woodbecomes stone. So it seems as wellin all too brief a time, cellby cell, old dogs turninto sweetness, faces bleachedlike ghosts, bones brittle and sharpas fallen sticks, until all that remainsis the slow thump of loveand tail. Surely that weightin our hearts is stone, the worknot of eras but daysand weeks, old dogs like quartzin our petrified memory. [End Page 116] CHIAROSCURO The shadow you cast is a darknessin which we all flounder, wishwe knew more than the outlineof your life, black and white photoswe shuffle through, glimpsesthat leave us to guess: you,in a white shirt and cotton ducksrolled up, crossing Rocky Riverto church in the johnboat you calledthe bateau. From the overhanging branchesat the shore, your paddle raisedin morning light, a snake siftsfrom a tree, circles your arm,sloughs to the water below.Or you, home from the war,crutches in hand, missing a stepon concrete stairs, how you spilledthrough bright air, made the choiceto swing your mending legs to spareyour heavy head, how when you hitand rolled, you felt them snap again.Or you, driving a bus through the dark,that time—so tired—you followed white lineup an exit and sat and wonderedhow you'd come to this place, and howyou drove that bus down and back into night. [End Page 117] EVERY LEAVING is a death,even the ones I thinkI desired, the packingof wool sweaters for morning walksthrough falling leavesto college classes,or boxes numbered and taped for the move froma long-loved home,or holiday guestswho crowded our rooms, towels and plates piledin the wake of flurried goodbyes,whose absence nowis a haunting lack. In January darkso cold it could breaklike actual iceI will drop you for your flight,driving to workand trying to thinkof my students, who [End Page 118] will shuffle to classin their wool sweaters,dimly aware of their ownlooming leavings, and you will be somewhere overhead,soaring through dawn,back to the lifeyou have chosen as yours. [End Page 119] Jane Sasser Jane Sasser has published poems in the The Sun, North American Review, Journal of the American Medical Association, and others. She has two poetry chapbooks, Recollecting the Snow (March Street Press, 2008) and Itinerant (Finishing Line Press, 2009). She recently retired from teaching English at Oak Ridge High School. Copyright © 2019 Berea College

Drawing from memory, and: Cold, and: At the Black Sea

Drawing from memory, and: Cold, and: At the Black Sea Claudia Serea (bio) Drawing from memory I could draw the details from memory. It would be a very nice drawing,with us kids sitting on the threshold,eating soup, and my grandmother dressed in black,with a black headscarfand her back turned,stirring the pot on the stovewith a wooden spoon. In this drawing,there are chickens shitting solemnlyin the yard,and a sleeping dogwith his huge lion headresting on his paws. See that cross-hatched shapein the background? That's the shedwhere I spent summer afternoonsreading Magellan's Voyageand The Journals of Captain Cook, old books stinking of mice,falling apart. [End Page 172] Cold It was so cold,the war had frozen over. I could see my breath in the classroom,fluffy like cotton yarn,and my teacher's,and my high school colleagues'. At home, I'd place my handsover the reading lampto turn them from blueto red. Mom bought fabrics, lining, batting, and snapsand made my brother and me ski costumesto wear to school. We slept with wool hats,wool socks, wool mittens,and wool sweaters so thickthey were bullet- and moth-proof. My breath turned to dew on the wall,then froze into intricate flowersand vines. It was so cold,the actors on the stage had visible breath,and the theatre audiencebreathed in Shakespeare's verseand exhaled cirrus wisps. [End Page 173] The bride and groom kissed nonstopto keep warm,and the wedding guests spoke white wordsbefore the food arrived. It was so cold,the rocks cracked open. The doctors breathed white gauzeas if ghosts were presentin the operating roomsbefore openingthe patients' steaming bellies. It was so cold,my circus lady neighborbrought home the pythonsso they wouldn't freeze,and kept them in the bathtub. She wore them to work,a tight suitunder her mink fur. For decades, it was cold, cold. Each one of us exhaleda small cloud, proof we were alive. At the Black Sea We stand in front of the seaas in front of a goddess,almost ashamedto undress. [End Page 174] The sea doesn't care. Last night, we hear,some people slipped by the Coast Guardwho had orders to shoot. They escaped into international waters,but the sailors from cargo shipsdidn't see them. The Turkish fishermendidn't hear them. Only the angelswho work the night shift in the shipyardheld their hands a while. From the deep,the storm brings up spoils of warand throws them on the shore: jellyfish, algae,shells, and small bonesof drowned swimmers. In and out.Inand out. In andout. Inandout. Restless.Restless, the sea doesn't care. [End Page 175] Claudia Serea Claudia Serea is a Romanian-born poet who immigrated to the US in 1995. Her poems and translations have appeared in Field, Gravel, New Letters, 5 a.m., Meridian, Word Riot, and Apple Valley Review, among others. She is the author of four poetry collections, most recently Nothing Important Happened Today (Broadstone Books). She co-hosts the Williams Readings poetry series in Rutherford, NJ and is a founding editor of National Translation Month. Visit www.cserea.tumblr.com. Copyright © 2018 University of Nebraska Press

Conceptualizing country-of-ingredient authenticity of luxury brands

The research investigates the influence of country-of-ingredient authenticity towards product judgement and ultimately how the construct influences the willingness to buy and recommend luxury branded products. This research is divided into 2 studies where the methodology takes on a 2×2×2 experimental research design looking at the raw materials acquired to craft Alpaca wool sweaters from brand and country of origin (COO) such as Prada (Made in Peru), Prada (Made in Italy) and Touchè (Made in Peru) and artisan skills used for Chikan-embroidered dresses from Prada (Made in India), Prada (Made in Italy) and Touchè (Made in India). Some findings indicate that Alpaca wool sweater ‘made in Peru’ does improve consumers' judgment of the branded product however country image and brand image played a part in authenticating the Chikan-embroidery that is ‘made in India’. Sustainable and ethical practices also positively improve product judgement of the products.

Synthesis of Complex Image Appearance from Limited Exemplars

Editing materials in photos opens up numerous opportunities like turning an unappealing dirt ground into luscious grass and creating a comfortable wool sweater in place of a cheap t-shirt. However, such edits are challenging. Approaches such as 3D rendering and BTF rendering can represent virtually everything, but they are also data intensive and computationally expensive, which makes user interaction difficult. Leaner methods such as texture synthesis are more easily controllable by artists, but also more limited in the range of materials that they handle, for example, grass and wool are typically problematic because of their non-Lambertian reflectance and numerous self-occlusions. We propose a new approach for editing of complex materials in photographs. We extend the texture-by-numbers approach with ideas from texture interpolation. The inputs to our method are coarse user annotation maps that specify the desired output, such as the local scale of the material and the illumination direction. Our algorithm then synthesizes the output from a discrete set of annotated exemplars. A key component of our method is that it can cope with missing data, interpolating information from the available exemplars when needed. This enables production of satisfying results involving materials with complex appearance variations such as foliage, carpet, and fabric from only one or a couple of exemplar photographs.

Courtly, and: Kemo Sabe, and: For Ruth Stone

Courtly, and: Kemo Sabe, and: For Ruth Stone Joseph Millar (bio) Courtly Forget the high-flown improbable phrases, the tinned fish and flowers, lipstick and wine—no matter Venice’s gimcrack cornices holding their thighs apart in the night or the red dahlias swaying on long stems walloping each other in the summer wind. It isn’t the blue rocks at low tide or the pale sea grass by the wall, lady of time and dried white flowers, lady of distant rain who wanders off looking for a book of matches along the road near the coffee shop built to look like a chateau and spattered with bird shit where gulls and ravens like the Hollywood movies have feasted for almost a century on the corpses of Lancelot and Keats. Nobody knows what it’s cost you to keep facing up to the world like this with its airport exhaust and chalk dust, both of us tired, both of us cold, trying to talk with the professors and lonely for California. [End Page 20] I bring these today to the door of your dream, as close as I can approach: saltwater to heal your sinuses, coffee with soy milk and coconut, blanket to warm your shoulders, bag of blue ice for your spine. Kemo Sabe My brother looks down at his fingers sorting the herb and mineral caps, bloodroot and barberry, burdock, zinc, prescribed by his holistic doctor. The tumor at the base of his tongue has shrunk a bit in the last months though he must still take a painkiller to swallow his chicken dinner. We’re in a quiet booth in Max’s Deli in Redwood City having just been to see The Lone Ranger, masked Texas cowboy of our childhood riding his alabaster horse across the landscapes of the Southwest, protector of the weak and scourge of all evil, with his Indian partner Tonto, once played in Hollywood by Jay Silverheels an all-star Mohawk lacrosse player and today by the white man Johnny Depp, heartthrob of women and master of disguise, with the taxidermic corpse of a raven covering his head and slashes of white paint below each eye [End Page 21] and we’re joking about the movie remembering our childhood diving like bats through the summer dusk, firing tin pistols into the air or else sneaking up on the twilit house to free all its hopeless prisoners. Sometimes we wanted to be the Lone Ranger, masked face of justice and valor, and sometimes we wanted to be Tonto with his buckskin clothes and his pinto horse who could track a man over solid rock, organic, native, and whole— my power-brother in his blue rain-jacket gambling on his Hanoi doctor who feeds his patients cobra blood running herbal ivs into their veins, and though he still looks way too thin my brother’s eyes are bright in his face and I think he embraces his unknown fate watching him hunch down over his plate working his way steadily forward through Max’s Lemon Roast Chicken Special. For Ruth Stone Sometimes you say bad things about people claiming it can’t be helped you crawl farther into the darkness just to see what it feels like but today you count the late frozen stars and Jupiter drifting into the dawn [End Page 22] because Ruth the poet has passed away who listened to the muse alone: the mailman and the trash truck driver, the women who work in Lost and Found, their faded hair wispy as cotton gauze in the discount store downtown. They are folding a dark wool sweater that smells of camphor and lighter fluid, in one pocket a train ticket from Roanoke to Syracuse. The creaky hinge on the Ladies Room door is silent now in the vacant station, only a traveling woman asleep, her suitcase tied with ribbons and twine and snowflakes dusting the platform, their stellar dendrites and crystal rosettes flickering like signals from outer space planetary and blind. [End Page 23] Joseph Millar Joseph Millar’s three collections are Overtime, a finalist for the Oregon Book Award; Fortune; and Blue Rust (all from Carnegie Mellon UP). His...

Cobalt

Cobalt

Influence of Fabric Textures on Pilling Performance of Wool Sweaters

The weft knitted fabrics including plain, rib, rib and Milano with 31.25tex and 17.86tex wool yarns were taken as research objectives with a view to investigate the influence of fabric textures on pilling performance of wool sweaters. According to the GB/T4802.3-1997, the pilling performances of various samples were tested and studied. The results show that the fabric textures have great influences on pilling performance of wool sweaters. The anti-pilling performance is rib &gt; rib &gt; Milano &gt;plain. The bigger the sinking depth is, the more serious the pilling phenomenon is. With larger liner density yarns, the anti-pilling performance of 1x1 ribs are better; With medium and less liner density yarns, the anti-pilling performance of 2 x 2 ribs are better.

South Haven, and: Mackinac Island

South Haven, and: Mackinac Island Sara Quinn Rivara (bio) South Haven Remember how the Pleiades hung stunned over the culvert, their breastsswaying over Orion's open maw, his hands raw? I didn't blink. Lake Michigan gnawed the shore: granite, plinth, all that was left of it—the old life.Memory, that mouth full of ash, highway that only runs south where the power plant pumps into the sluice. Fish swim backward,the land tilts, headland, snowbank, bluff. The pier draped in silver cloths all night, lighthouse erect and comely as a lover, that redknife; ten years a housewife and mute. Struck numb since I stripped down: wool sweater, lace, wire. Grace. Yes, thisold thing again—unpeel the nametag, that name is lost tossed in the ravine where narcissus grows out of season,girls kiss each other between the knees. Hello my name is fades to Hell is. This place: headland, pier, glacial drift. Beercans glint like satellites and Hades clomps around the basement like an oaf. Home where beach scours the sky, the milk sours,hope ruffles its feathers. Oh, who unseals the sky's blue dome? Who calls this blear world home but the rest of us? The rest. Sara: the Pleiadespour down their terrible fire: all winter, the flowers bloomed. [End Page 49] Mackinac Island Penelope, Undone Undo the cotton shift, those sprigs of wild horse-mint, those buttons of ripe butter! Beauty,you're weeping. Then the girlskin unhinged, fur and skin, all silver scar and painted lip, pointed nail enameledas: undo the sky, lion-heart. Untell each lie, untie the mooringsand sail beyond the still harbor. Oh, best beast: unsheath those bleached teeths. The bloodied lip bleats best, and so the wholebloody heap is in a pile in the sand: all that hide, all thatfancy. And the jays are on it and the crows pick apart even the bones. Even the lacework of veinsand the meaty heart. To walk away (headland, long grass, clearwater) is another thing completely. To not look back on the old life is salt, lozenge. All carved off ears, while up herethe air clears out that thought alley. Who told these suitorsto make a line at the gate? To bring bread and honey, milk- weed nosegays and their hard meat? The verdant fleshis failing. This, thigh. This sow's ear, this lemonrind. Thislimestone cliff, this turtled island? All mine, all mine. [End Page 50] Sara Quinn Rivara Sara Quinn Rivara has appeared in 32 Poems Magazine, Crab Orchard Review, The Cortland Review, Blackbird, Bluestem, and LiteraryMama, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and for inclusion in Best New Poets Anthology. She lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan with her son, and teaches English and Writing at Kalamazoo Valley Community College. Her chapbook, Lake Effect, is forthcoming in July 2013 from Kelsay Books Copyright © 2013 University of Wisconsin Board of Regents

Another Word for Dead

Another Word for Dead Katie Williams (bio) The kids in the back, they're whispering it again: Spider . . . Spider's a virgin. And, God, she's old. Like in her thirties. Miss Laurel Mella, "Spider" to her students, hears the whispers, but pretends she hasn't. With her nail she etches a small "x" in the gray gum that keeps the windowpanes in place and watches the leaves outside, their colors crackling with tannic acid. The kids are restless in American Lit. Late afternoon, their bodies suppurate with cafeteria starches. It's two periods until the end of the day. Michigan. October. Four days since Candace Miller disappeared walking home from school. This morning, a cold snap, and everyone's breath showed in mincing puffs, until finally the principal ordered the heat turned on. Now, the vents blow hot swirls of dust, toasting together wool sweaters, Miss Mella's fading hydrangeas and Nathalie the foreign exchange student's scented oil, which she rubs under her dark arms instead of deodorant—an acrid sweetness. Yesterday afternoon, Miss Mella went out with the student government as they posted "Missing" flyers across town. She is one of their faculty liaisons, and so she held a map of the town, carefully crossing off the streets they papered. The students leapt ahead of her in a jolly pack, work-proud, rolls of masking tape circling their thin wrists like bangles. Every now and then the kids grew solemn, asking, Do you think they'll find her, Miss Mella? She would answer, The flyers will help, while dispensing more tape in sticky strips. This morning, though, the wind whipped through the streets; the tape didn't hold. Now, flyers skitter across the school courtyard, flirting with the fallen leaves, making a sound that reminds Miss Mella of the words "old bones." Miss Mella sweeps a sheet of paper from her desk and walks briskly to the front of the classroom. She lifts the paper in front of her face then lowers it an inch, peering over the top at her students. Some lounge, sneakers twitching in the aisle. One or two [End Page 220] sleep, faces pressed to their arms or desk; they'll soon wake, cheeks branded by clothing wrinkles. In the back, a cluster buzzes with whispers; every few moments a giggle explodes, rising and then dying as it hits the low ceiling. A few troopers, well behaved, watch Miss Mella and her sheet of paper. "Heads up," Miss Mella says, and then louder, "Faces forward, please. We have an announcement from the principal." At this the students straighten and hush. They reshuffle into an orderly grid and fall quiet. They know it will be about Candace Miller. Miss Mella reads verbatim from the paper. "One of our students, fifteen-year old Candace Miller, disappeared while walking home from school on Friday afternoon. She was last seen on Rosewood Avenue between 3:00 and 3:30 PM, wearing an orange windbreaker and blue jeans. Students are encouraged to go to the police with any information regarding Candace Miller's disappearance. Students are also encouraged to walk home in groups. The town will enforce a curfew of 10 PM for those citizens less than eighteen years of age, beginning tonight and lasting indefinitely. Thank you." Miss Mella glances up at the students, surprised that there is no groan over the curfew. They remain quiet, watching her, waiting for her to say . . . something. What can she say? "That's all," she offers. "Except . . . maybe you've seen this flyer around the school." She gestures to the blackboard on which is taped a sheet of bright pink copy paper—Candace Miller's school photo, smiling down at them. She has what Miss Mella's mother would call chipmunk cheeks. The word MISSING blazes in capitals above Candace's head. "The Student Government is meeting in the choir room today to put more of these up around town. Mr. Witter and I are faculty liaisons. I hope you'll come. Um . . . any concerned student is invited to join us." The students remain oddly quiet. Miss Mella fusses with the hem of her blouse. "In fact, extra credit if...

Clothing–Potentially a Significant Source of Endotoxin Exposure

Clothing–Potentially a Significant Source of Endotoxin Exposure