Poetry

The petals will be sand in my rain jacket pocket.
They lick dryly against the polyester static
in the zipped cell set flat against my chest.
I was taught to leave them until they
shriveled by their own means, the only pressure
my movement, my legs gliding through circles
on the spokes of my droplet-dotted bicycle in evening’s rain,
the jerks and shifts to avoid senseless puddles threading waves,
energy, loops of ice pebbles
up through my muscles, startling my core
and promoting the slight saunter, delayed erosion
of the curled-up, cocoon shape of decay
beyond replenishment dangling
in my hidden pocket.

When I feel their knots and spikes
jutting slightly against the thin, glossy fabric of my coat
to skim my chest, I know that their abrasion
counts on more than the donut circulation
of pulses in my legs, the swaying of my torso
set on an evening of shades lighter than gray
but softer, less blinding than white:
an evening where my head moves from ground
to overhead, to every side as lustrous cars,
colors of maroon, navy, black,
ripe cherry
paint strokes of my reflection beating by.
The people on the sidewalk
glance down at their puddle-tinted soles
though inside their heads feel nothing close to dread.

When I halt by the sidewalk, slip off my bike,
tumble on sleekness,
When I rush through the black metal
gates, dripping and shedding minced tile slates,
trickling beetle skins of paint to the garden,
my hand hesitant as it hovers before my chest,
I think to
pinch the crinkling petals of the tulip
which once sat dry above dampened dirt
that had not yet turned to mud. I remember there was
a fresh series of days when stems cascaded white silk,
were ruffled against softly by brown rabbits,
so delicately skipping, wisping their rain-stained,
acute triangle noses
against flourishing roots and petal skins, glazed by a natural
film of strawberry milk, frosted white or evergreen-mist blue.

Never bring fingers
like pennies
of frozen plush
to a dry, wrinkled yellow stem:
a stem that may wiggle, hold on
but proceeds to crack.

Art: Flower Fossil by Grace Baranko

Poetry

Born anew in elasticity, beige and borrowed,
I bathe in barrels of crimson wine
Until it stains in droplets of sacrament on my skin,
Unrelenting, like ashen sediment.

I bathe in barrels of crimson wine
In drunken baptisms veiled by vapor haze.
Unrelenting, like ashen sediment,
My morals bleed in the eggshell of stolen scriptures.

In drunken baptisms veiled by vapor haze,
Could I distill what drapes above in a sole stream?
My morals bleed in the eggshell of stolen scriptures,
Like ink tarnishing cobalt-stained glass.

Could I distill what drapes above in a sole stream?
Its contents coursing, intravenous and acute,
Like ink tarnishing cobalt-stained glass.
I exist outside of solemn syllables and damning.

Its contents coursing, intravenous and acute,
I’m ridden with rituals composed of moss and memory.
I exist outside of solemn syllables and damning,
Evergreen and unforgetting.

I’m ridden with rituals composed of moss and memory,
Curiosity like venom dispersed in opaque milk.
Evergreen and unforgetting,
Do I fear both the life I live and its residue?

Curiosity like venom dispersed in opaque milk,
I feel tangible when speaking in what is not said,
Do I fear both the life I live and its residue?
Sordid in silence, an apple in my teeth.

I feel tangible when speaking in what is not said,
Like how blind blends into midnight with ease.
Sordid in silence, an apple in my teeth,
The remnants of the Sistine chapel on my palm.
Like how blind blends into midnight with ease,
At the week’s closure, I lament and wash away
The remnants of the Sistine chapel on my palm,
Calloused from judgment’s embers.

Poetry

I used to lounge on the Nile flood plain
to watch the river churn and cut the sands,
and to think how people cheered
for my glory long ago
and now there is only the same glory to cheer for.
Yes, I was great;
I saw it in the flames,
the cascades of shifting bodies in the streets,
proud of swordsmen, land-winners,
fledgeling charioteers.
For them I was enigma,
Ramesses, the Great Ancestor, the god
who tinkered in the life-forge.

But sulking at the Nile bank, I saw rocks
moved and smoothed and shattered, simple water
ravaging the earth, and my mind sprung
up and asked the gods to let me
become water, so Ra told me,
smirking, I was a man.

Yes, I was a man, but maybe
if I climbed high enough
I would be a man emancipated
from the anchors of the world.
Yes, I was a man, but I was a man
deserving, and for years
I climbed the climb to power.

In the seventh year I summited, stumbling
in the sky-wind as gods blew
out their lungs to sound
a warning over the winds, calling
you are no god, just
one speck
on Ta Dehent. Nothing around.
No yielding soldiers, complacent
prince, palace, throne,
glory. Sand. There was sand and I wilted
into it. I took to the tomb.

Now, at night the Nile is not mine;
the red sky sees an empire
wrinkling
and a man in the gloom stands
with a pensive lean.
I am granite; I cannot turn;
neither of us can see the other’s eyes.
In the prelude to boundlessness,
marble does not freeze him,
though his body
mocks me. He forgets
how it is to have everything
and still for the world to spin
unsatiated.

Art: Destruction by Jade Wilson

art

poetry

I’m beginning to see the fissures.
On top of the hood of my car,
Together trading hits from a Marlboro
Cigarette. You sat with such confidence,
Firmly believing each and every puff
Brought you higher and higher
Up the social chain. I, however,
Was only your shadow. Blessed
To become a solitary part of your story,
Not the beginning, not participating
In your finale, just a rest stop.
The wind was heavier than your eyelids
Post a drunken, sleepless night.
I held your hands between mine,
And warmed them with all of my soul.
You were always cold.
I was always warm.

Similar to the feeling you get
When you understand something,
But don’t fully get it,
You are a sentence I cannot read.
The syllables sounding something
Familiar, yet in this world, this cold
Fucking twisted, shit-house world,
Familiarity can be poisonous. But,
If I just ran.
If I just took one breath and one step,
And ran far beyond where you
Could find me, would I be at peace?
Who would I really be?

I find myself talking through your teeth,
Comforting myself with something sweet.
The only problem is, as time goes on,
It sounds less like something you would say,
And more like something I want to hear.
We all say we’d rather hear a truth
Than a lie, but at the end of the day,
It’s all just a prison in writing.
Tear a scrap of paper and scribe
Your hopes and dreams.
You wanna be a millionaire, kid?
In five years, you’ll find 
This scrap of paper huddled,
In the mouth of a fly.
You can’t exactly remember who
You thought you were going to become,
But this certainly isn’t it.

Artwork by Olivia Bikhazi 

Poetry 

Saturday morning, yet closer to lunchtime, the stove 
Is covered with pans, caked in breakfast. 
The grey counter is strewn with papers and crumbs. 
I haven’t eaten yet today. The man with the black
Eyebrows but the silvered hair pulls a Tupperware 
From the fridge and scoops it into a bowl. 
I only eat about a third, but I hand it to you. 
You swallow the rest like a pitbull, and I do
The dishes while your family speaks inner circles.
The silvered man reaches into the middle of the mass
Of the papers and crumbs and finds a fruit bowl. 
He tosses a plump, red fruit towards the skylight. 

He pierces its thick skin, and it splits in two, 
Like a hatchet cracks wood. Its two halves reveal 
Round, red, raspberry-like, individual seeds. 
He explains how it is a fruit of patience, and how
All the white must be removed. The process takes
About thirty minutes. He sets the blue bowl in front
Of my hip bone. He stares through his wire-framed 
Glasses at me while he places a spoon on my palm. 
The fruit is bitter, it doesn’t taste like raspberries. 
The texture is gelatinous, yet crunchy. It’s off putting. 
I keep setting small spoonfuls on my tongue 
So as to not discount his hard work and hospitality. 

The light in the room is its usual overcast, as it is
The first time you and I are able to not speak, 
The times we intertwine with the couch, when I 
Meet your brother and Sam, and the moments 
You tell me to stop speaking to you. The kitchen is 
Always cold. I wrap my purple self in brown blankets.
The lighting is as it is every Saturday. 
Yet, today is not Saturday. 

The funny thing about memory is its fluidity. 
Rather than remembering distinct days, you come to
Remember the shared moments from a space. 
It all blurs together and you can’t explain the 
Chronology of the memory, because you don’t know 
If the pomegranate was the same day as the shower.
You know the shower was the same day the silvered 
Man decided to buy a car, but you don’t know if
It’s the same day as when you met your brother. 
You remember the collective memories from places. 
Each room in your house is its own space. 
Whether the lights were on or off or it was day or night 
Dictates the space. Each place has its own collection,
Each of which blend into a representative feeling
Of such space. I cannot speak to the validity 
Of how it feels to eat a pomegranate for the first time. 
This feeling has become blended with all interactions 
I shared with your kitchen’s overcast light. 
But I know your countertop shines a different grey
In the day than the gray it shines at night. 
 

Photo: Deserted by Cate Christiansen 

Poetry 

I lift a perforated screen from the rectangular prism.
I peer through the thick, cloudy glass of the lizards’ tank. My pupils
Dilate as I peer into four geckos’ veiny eyes. Their pupils
Expand as ours meet. Unlike a camera lens changing
Its aperture, like a venus fly trap opening its teeth to swallow.

My tentative fingers shakily squeeze pink tweezers.
Brown, tan, and black worms fall in front of the lizards.
Luna’s farsighted eyes adjust to focus on the meal in front of her toes,
Her head cocks side to side while the worm’s head digs
Into the sand. Not like a dog pawing the ground, getting dirt in its nails.
A halibut swallowing itself into the floor, attempting to camouflage.  

The gecko’s triangular nose collides with the ground,
The worms find themselves surrounded by tiny, sharp teeth.
The teeth break apart the worm’s outer shell,
Looking less like my little sister licking a lollipop,
An eagle penetrating and snapping a crab’s soft carcass. 

The pupae’s insides turn to its outsides: mush. 
It slides down their small throats to a dark, warm pool, 
Unlike a child at a waterpark, these tiny pools are filled with acid. 

Poetry 

A fire cackles in the corner,
every blood curdling screech like a whip 
cracking against the boiling heat of the Sahara.

Something, or someone, chars
inside the inferno. It fuels the fire, 
pressing its flames into the sky.

Smoke fills the night air. 
Tonight the stars are a mix of
calcium chloride and silver nitrate 

dropped by God, a scientist, 
over a black canvas 
with an amber pipet. 

The sun of the stars burns 
the golden flesh of Hercules,
his body angled away from the fire. 

Streaks of fabric, woven
by threads of silver from deep in 
the Peruvian rainforest, spill over his body.

Psalms of humanity are sewn 
to the hem of the cloth 
in a labyrinth of gold and Redstone. 

An open book lies on the floor
of the labyrinth, abandoned,
dusted with the tears of age. 

Close your eyes. If you listen,
you can hear the whisper of a woman, 
her breath infused with tobacco and peppermint.

Her words are syrup,
dripping through the gaps of her teeth,
carved by the burning stub of a cigarette.

Can you hear the syrup?
It tastes of sea salt and caramel
and feels like fear. 

Is she afraid of the fire 
And its orange and red tangle of knots?
Or of the dancers,

Moving to the sound of
velcro ripping off of the ceiling
of St. Peter’s Basilica. 

As Hercules stares down from his perch
among the stares at the dancers,
he is reminded of God’s failure. 

The fire still burns in the corner,
an eternal mass of dark light
while the dancers still spin. 

And there’s a bird sitting on its perch
in a sycamore tree to the left of the fire.
The bird doesn’t move. 

It doesn’t move. Instead, 
It simply watches the world. 
A robin pantomime. 

Photo by Garrett Glasgow 

Poetry

The petals will be sand in my rain jacket pocket.
They lick dryly against the polyester static
in the zipped cell set flat against my chest.
I was taught to leave them until they
shriveled by their own means, the only pressure
my movement, my legs gliding through circles
on the spokes of my droplet-dotted bicycle in evening’s rain,
the jerks and shifts to avoid senseless puddles threading waves,
energy, loops of ice pebbles
up through my muscles, startling my core
and promoting the slight saunter, delayed erosion
of the curled-up, cocoon shape of decay
beyond replenishment dangling
in my hidden pocket.

When I feel their knots and spikes
jutting slightly against the thin, glossy fabric of my coat
to skim my chest, I know that their abrasion
counts on more than the donut circulation
of pulses in my legs, the swaying of my torso
set on an evening of shades lighter than gray
but softer, less blinding than white:
an evening where my head moves from ground
to overhead, to every side as lustrous cars,
colors of maroon, navy, black,
ripe cherry
paint strokes of my reflection beating by.
The people on the sidewalk
glance down at their puddle-tinted soles
though inside their heads feel nothing close to dread.

When I halt by the sidewalk, slip off my bike,
tumble on sleekness,
When I rush through the black metal
gates, dripping and shedding minced tile slates,
trickling beetle skins of paint to the garden,
my hand hesitant as it hovers before my chest,
I think to
pinch the crinkling petals of the tulip
which once sat dry above dampened dirt
that had not yet turned to mud. I remember there was
a fresh series of days when stems cascaded white silk,
were ruffled against softly by brown rabbits,
so delicately skipping, wisping their rain-stained,
acute triangle noses
against flourishing roots and petal skins, glazed by a natural
film of strawberry milk, frosted white or evergreen-mist blue.

Never bring fingers
like pennies
of frozen plush
to a dry, wrinkled yellow stem:
a stem that may wiggle, hold on
but proceeds to crack.

Art: Flower Fossil by Grace Baranko

Poetry

Born anew in elasticity, beige and borrowed,
I bathe in barrels of crimson wine
Until it stains in droplets of sacrament on my skin,
Unrelenting, like ashen sediment.

I bathe in barrels of crimson wine
In drunken baptisms veiled by vapor haze.
Unrelenting, like ashen sediment,
My morals bleed in the eggshell of stolen scriptures.

In drunken baptisms veiled by vapor haze,
Could I distill what drapes above in a sole stream?
My morals bleed in the eggshell of stolen scriptures,
Like ink tarnishing cobalt-stained glass.

Could I distill what drapes above in a sole stream?
Its contents coursing, intravenous and acute,
Like ink tarnishing cobalt-stained glass.
I exist outside of solemn syllables and damning.

Its contents coursing, intravenous and acute,
I’m ridden with rituals composed of moss and memory.
I exist outside of solemn syllables and damning,
Evergreen and unforgetting.

I’m ridden with rituals composed of moss and memory,
Curiosity like venom dispersed in opaque milk.
Evergreen and unforgetting,
Do I fear both the life I live and its residue?

Curiosity like venom dispersed in opaque milk,
I feel tangible when speaking in what is not said,
Do I fear both the life I live and its residue?
Sordid in silence, an apple in my teeth.

I feel tangible when speaking in what is not said,
Like how blind blends into midnight with ease.
Sordid in silence, an apple in my teeth,
The remnants of the Sistine chapel on my palm.
Like how blind blends into midnight with ease,
At the week’s closure, I lament and wash away
The remnants of the Sistine chapel on my palm,
Calloused from judgment’s embers.

Poetry

I used to lounge on the Nile flood plain
to watch the river churn and cut the sands,
and to think how people cheered
for my glory long ago
and now there is only the same glory to cheer for.
Yes, I was great;
I saw it in the flames,
the cascades of shifting bodies in the streets,
proud of swordsmen, land-winners,
fledgeling charioteers.
For them I was enigma,
Ramesses, the Great Ancestor, the god
who tinkered in the life-forge.

But sulking at the Nile bank, I saw rocks
moved and smoothed and shattered, simple water
ravaging the earth, and my mind sprung
up and asked the gods to let me
become water, so Ra told me,
smirking, I was a man.

Yes, I was a man, but maybe
if I climbed high enough
I would be a man emancipated
from the anchors of the world.
Yes, I was a man, but I was a man
deserving, and for years
I climbed the climb to power.

In the seventh year I summited, stumbling
in the sky-wind as gods blew
out their lungs to sound
a warning over the winds, calling
you are no god, just
one speck
on Ta Dehent. Nothing around.
No yielding soldiers, complacent
prince, palace, throne,
glory. Sand. There was sand and I wilted
into it. I took to the tomb.

Now, at night the Nile is not mine;
the red sky sees an empire
wrinkling
and a man in the gloom stands
with a pensive lean.
I am granite; I cannot turn;
neither of us can see the other’s eyes.
In the prelude to boundlessness,
marble does not freeze him,
though his body
mocks me. He forgets
how it is to have everything
and still for the world to spin
unsatiated.

Art: Destruction by Jade Wilson

poetry

I’m beginning to see the fissures.
On top of the hood of my car,
Together trading hits from a Marlboro
Cigarette. You sat with such confidence,
Firmly believing each and every puff
Brought you higher and higher
Up the social chain. I, however,
Was only your shadow. Blessed
To become a solitary part of your story,
Not the beginning, not participating
In your finale, just a rest stop.
The wind was heavier than your eyelids
Post a drunken, sleepless night.
I held your hands between mine,
And warmed them with all of my soul.
You were always cold.
I was always warm.

Similar to the feeling you get
When you understand something,
But don’t fully get it,
You are a sentence I cannot read.
The syllables sounding something
Familiar, yet in this world, this cold
Fucking twisted, shit-house world,
Familiarity can be poisonous. But,
If I just ran.
If I just took one breath and one step,
And ran far beyond where you
Could find me, would I be at peace?
Who would I really be?

I find myself talking through your teeth,
Comforting myself with something sweet.
The only problem is, as time goes on,
It sounds less like something you would say,
And more like something I want to hear.
We all say we’d rather hear a truth
Than a lie, but at the end of the day,
It’s all just a prison in writing.
Tear a scrap of paper and scribe
Your hopes and dreams.
You wanna be a millionaire, kid?
In five years, you’ll find 
This scrap of paper huddled,
In the mouth of a fly.
You can’t exactly remember who
You thought you were going to become,
But this certainly isn’t it.

Artwork by Olivia Bikhazi 

Poetry 

Saturday morning, yet closer to lunchtime, the stove 
Is covered with pans, caked in breakfast. 
The grey counter is strewn with papers and crumbs. 
I haven’t eaten yet today. The man with the black
Eyebrows but the silvered hair pulls a Tupperware 
From the fridge and scoops it into a bowl. 
I only eat about a third, but I hand it to you. 
You swallow the rest like a pitbull, and I do
The dishes while your family speaks inner circles.
The silvered man reaches into the middle of the mass
Of the papers and crumbs and finds a fruit bowl. 
He tosses a plump, red fruit towards the skylight. 

He pierces its thick skin, and it splits in two, 
Like a hatchet cracks wood. Its two halves reveal 
Round, red, raspberry-like, individual seeds. 
He explains how it is a fruit of patience, and how
All the white must be removed. The process takes
About thirty minutes. He sets the blue bowl in front
Of my hip bone. He stares through his wire-framed 
Glasses at me while he places a spoon on my palm. 
The fruit is bitter, it doesn’t taste like raspberries. 
The texture is gelatinous, yet crunchy. It’s off putting. 
I keep setting small spoonfuls on my tongue 
So as to not discount his hard work and hospitality. 

The light in the room is its usual overcast, as it is
The first time you and I are able to not speak, 
The times we intertwine with the couch, when I 
Meet your brother and Sam, and the moments 
You tell me to stop speaking to you. The kitchen is 
Always cold. I wrap my purple self in brown blankets.
The lighting is as it is every Saturday. 
Yet, today is not Saturday. 

The funny thing about memory is its fluidity. 
Rather than remembering distinct days, you come to
Remember the shared moments from a space. 
It all blurs together and you can’t explain the 
Chronology of the memory, because you don’t know 
If the pomegranate was the same day as the shower.
You know the shower was the same day the silvered 
Man decided to buy a car, but you don’t know if
It’s the same day as when you met your brother. 
You remember the collective memories from places. 
Each room in your house is its own space. 
Whether the lights were on or off or it was day or night 
Dictates the space. Each place has its own collection,
Each of which blend into a representative feeling
Of such space. I cannot speak to the validity 
Of how it feels to eat a pomegranate for the first time. 
This feeling has become blended with all interactions 
I shared with your kitchen’s overcast light. 
But I know your countertop shines a different grey
In the day than the gray it shines at night. 
 

Photo: Deserted by Cate Christiansen 

Poetry 

I lift a perforated screen from the rectangular prism.
I peer through the thick, cloudy glass of the lizards’ tank. My pupils
Dilate as I peer into four geckos’ veiny eyes. Their pupils
Expand as ours meet. Unlike a camera lens changing
Its aperture, like a venus fly trap opening its teeth to swallow.

My tentative fingers shakily squeeze pink tweezers.
Brown, tan, and black worms fall in front of the lizards.
Luna’s farsighted eyes adjust to focus on the meal in front of her toes,
Her head cocks side to side while the worm’s head digs
Into the sand. Not like a dog pawing the ground, getting dirt in its nails.
A halibut swallowing itself into the floor, attempting to camouflage.  

The gecko’s triangular nose collides with the ground,
The worms find themselves surrounded by tiny, sharp teeth.
The teeth break apart the worm’s outer shell,
Looking less like my little sister licking a lollipop,
An eagle penetrating and snapping a crab’s soft carcass. 

The pupae’s insides turn to its outsides: mush. 
It slides down their small throats to a dark, warm pool, 
Unlike a child at a waterpark, these tiny pools are filled with acid. 

Poetry 

A fire cackles in the corner,
every blood curdling screech like a whip 
cracking against the boiling heat of the Sahara.

Something, or someone, chars
inside the inferno. It fuels the fire, 
pressing its flames into the sky.

Smoke fills the night air. 
Tonight the stars are a mix of
calcium chloride and silver nitrate 

dropped by God, a scientist, 
over a black canvas 
with an amber pipet. 

The sun of the stars burns 
the golden flesh of Hercules,
his body angled away from the fire. 

Streaks of fabric, woven
by threads of silver from deep in 
the Peruvian rainforest, spill over his body.

Psalms of humanity are sewn 
to the hem of the cloth 
in a labyrinth of gold and Redstone. 

An open book lies on the floor
of the labyrinth, abandoned,
dusted with the tears of age. 

Close your eyes. If you listen,
you can hear the whisper of a woman, 
her breath infused with tobacco and peppermint.

Her words are syrup,
dripping through the gaps of her teeth,
carved by the burning stub of a cigarette.

Can you hear the syrup?
It tastes of sea salt and caramel
and feels like fear. 

Is she afraid of the fire 
And its orange and red tangle of knots?
Or of the dancers,

Moving to the sound of
velcro ripping off of the ceiling
of St. Peter’s Basilica. 

As Hercules stares down from his perch
among the stares at the dancers,
he is reminded of God’s failure. 

The fire still burns in the corner,
an eternal mass of dark light
while the dancers still spin. 

And there’s a bird sitting on its perch
in a sycamore tree to the left of the fire.
The bird doesn’t move. 

It doesn’t move. Instead, 
It simply watches the world. 
A robin pantomime. 

Photo by Garrett Glasgow 

Poetry

I too stand where he stands,
right leg stretched forward,
weight rested on the left.

He stands tall, spine straight,
shoulders back. His gaze
is resolute and unwavering. 

He casts his sling over his shoulder
and scans the land around him
with acute understanding. 

He knows, as I know, the space
around him; the delicately carved
statue of Aurora 

in the center of a crystal fountain, 
the trees in the gardens teeming 
with deep green, pungent, pears,

the woman who sits on a stool outside 
a stone church, watching those who pass 
with congenital malformation. 

He stands looming in the sun,
exposed body bathing 
and glistening in the light.

He knows. He knows so well
that nothing could derail him 
from his stark fortitude. 

But in all his beauty and glory,
he is still simply a boy. And his face,
while resolute, is made of stone.

And stone is only a frozen facade,
Carved by an invisible, wanting hand,
and plastered until all the suns are gone.

I too am made of stone. 

Prose 

    On top shelf of the dresser in my bedroom there’s a plant. To be honest, I’m not even sure what type of plant it is. It’s stems germinate directly from the soil, spill out over the brim of their pot, and cascade down over the sides of the dresser, not even close to touching the beige micro-sand soft carpet below. Yet the plant looks oddly large in comparison to the other things on the dresser. 
    There’s a glass mason jar to the left of my plant that’s half full with seashells I’ve collected off the beaches of Antigua and Barbuda. The other half of the mason jar is filled with glass, or “sea-glass,” that has been eroded by the long-lasting lap of the ocean, so that the edges are smooth and the surface of the glass is worn and no longer opaque. The mason jar itself reaches up to the waist of the pot, not even peeking over the rim of the white fettling knife-carved clay.
    There's a small cabinet directly below my plant and on the handle of the cabinet there’s some sort of attempt at wire-art. Originally, I had aimed to make a bracelet, but when the small piece of amethyst I had wanted to put in the bracelet kept falling out, I decided instead to twist the thin brass wire around my finger and then to hang it on the cabinet handle as a reminder that I’m not an artist.      
    On the shelf next to the cabinet and slightly to the left and below the plant, there is a line of three small glass objects. The first object is a seahorse stained with streaks of subalpine fir green down its back and deep grey-blue along its breast. The second object is a glass owl from the small island Murano off the coast of Venice. The owl fits in the palm of a small-child’s hand and its head is painted orange while the rest is left untouched. The third object is a house that’s built out of the most basic of geometric shapes. The house is not made up of the shiny, pretty looking class the objects beside it are made up of. Rather, it’s made up of the “mug-glass” and looks like it would be very satisfying to throw against a wall. On a flight from Utah to Amsterdam, the flight attendant came around and passed one out to each person. Apparently, there’s 160 of them that people collect. I think the collection of random ornaments I have scattered on my shelves adds a rather complete look to my dresser and make it look beautiful.  
    There’s some debate between the meaning of the word “sublime” versus the word “beautiful.” In his “On the Sublime and Beautiful,” Edmund Burke says that the sublime evokes a sense of astonishment while beauty is comparatively small and should be “smooth and polished.” I do not think that my plant and its surrounding are sublime, insofar as I am not awe-struck or dramatically moved when I see my plant. At first glance, I see more of a simple beauty that is light, delicate, and soft. However, I find it sublime that my plant can recover from the brink of death after I’ve starved it of water for over two weeks (I don’t exactly have a green thumb). 
One of Edmunde Burke’s most substantial arguments for what sublime is is that the sublime is “founded on pain.” While it may seem like a stretch to say that my plant was founded on pain, I am willing to make that leap. 
Dirt has been around since almost the beginning of time, meaning that it has seen and been the foundation of anything that anyone has ever built. It has been the host to the formation of empires, dictatorships, and republics - the groundwork for armies driven to war by imperialist regimes over the stretches Mongolian Plateau. Blood has spilled onto the soil of the New World by settler-colonialists, evicting those who are native to the land. Cancer, fear, sorrow; ravaging the land and the dirt, until death has been soaked into the veins of the minerals that course through the earth and all of nature is resting on the ruins of a broken world. 
    So my plant rests on dirt and soil which inherently means it rests on pain. It is sublime. 
    But everything in the world relies on dirt’s foundation, even those things we call “non-natural.” And if dirt is pain, that makes everything sublime. 
    And if everything is sublime, what becomes of beauty? 

Photo by Garrett Glasgow 

Prose

    The first lie I ever told was in a church. It was the spring of second grade, and almost every student was fidgeting on the hardwood pews waiting to go outside, despite the fact that recess had just ended. My best friend Aimee and I sat in the back of the chapel, as usual, kicking our feet and giggling when the congregation sang Come Thou Fount. Whenever they got to the line “And now I raise my Ebenezer,” snickers would break out across the room. None of us knew what an Ebenezer was, but we thought we had a pretty good idea. 
    On this particular day, Aimee and I were entertaining ourselves by embarking on a scientific venture. Each day at recess, we would exit the stuffy classroom into the cool morning and flop down on the damp grass. Growing in the field were hundreds of white flowers that smelled far less beautiful than they looked. Small, fuzzy moths frequented these flowers, and we watched with interest, until one day Aimee stretched out her hand and snatched one out of the air. Not to be outdone, I followed, and when we ran out of hands we switched to plastic bags pilfered from Ms Fjelstead’s storage cabinet. Ms. Fjelstead straight-up sucked. Anyway, on this particular day, Aimee and I had filled our pockets with bagged moths and were carefully observing their movements when we realized that they actually were not moving at all due to their lack of air. That’s when Ms. Fjelstead walked over and asked us what we had there, and if we wanted to show it to the class. Not particularly wanting to display a ziplock full of dead ass moths in a church, I replied: “nothing.” I could tell she was angry because she crinkled up her face like a jock crushing a soda can and shook her bottle-blond bangs at me. She stared at me, then stared at Aimee, and we stared right back at her. After a moment, she turned and stormed away to confront Kaden who was hurling spitballs at the statue of Jesus on the cross. Kaden claimed his brother was one of the Denver Broncos. The pastor, oblivious, continued on. 
    Pastor Pete was an older portly man who had officially given up on life. Every day, he would get up on the stage and mutter at drug commercial listing side effects speeds about the glory of god with a little homophobia tossed in there just to spice things up. Whenever he got to the parts about the sinners he would slow down and stare at each of us in turn with eyes so glassy I thought God had possessed him. Ms. Fjelstead didn’t like that theory, because apparently only Satan possesses people. Fortunately for me, Pastor Pete couldn’t see me because I sat directly behind Amelia Deer who was at least 5’4 (in the second grade, mind you). Unfortunately for Amelia, that meant Pastor Pete stared at her the most. I was convinced that Amelia was a fairy because she told me she could fly, only she couldn’t then because the weather conditions weren’t right, which seemed to me like irrefutable evidence. Besdies, she had like really, really long hair. That morning she had a bandaid in the middle of her forehead where she claimed a surgeon drilled into her head to scramble her brains around. That I did not believe because as a doctor’s daughter, I was sure they would have at least put a bigger bandage on. Sometimes Amelia would join us in our moth collecting excursions, but most of the time she would spend her recesses scraping sap from the pine trees on the corner of the field and painting it onto her face like football stripes. 
    The rest of the kids played something called the puppy game. In essence, everyone in the class would pretend to be puppies and Bethany, the principal's daughter, would be their mother and order them around. She even got the boys to join in on this because every day she would pick one of them to be the father. I don’t know why, but they were all crazy for her glorified bowl cut and stupid little glasses with butterflies on the rims. She usually picked Aidan to be her husband, who I told I had a crush on him to his face in kindergarten and never lived it down. If you were like me and Bethany didn’t like you, she would make you go sit by the Not Born Yet Tree where you would just sit there and just not be born. After being relegated to the tree one too many times, I decided to leave and kill moths instead. The only popular kid who didn’t participate in the puppy game was McKenna. What a strawberry blonde bitch. McKenna and her sidekick/personal valet Courtney loved to take the mickey out of people, especially Ella. But Ella got the last laugh because she got in a car crash and you can’t bully someone with a concussion. The only reason I wasn’t a victim of her parental divorce-related malignance was because Aimee was kinda scary. She had bangs that covered eyes and a stare that made the pastor suspicious. Apart from that, she was also known for digging her fingernails into people’s arms so hard they wouldn’t have the courage to see the nurse. 
    The second lie I told, or rather crime I committed, took place at the Book Fair, when people from the city library would come in and cram our 10 by 20 ft library with illicit books. By illicit, I am of course referring to Goosebumps and Harry Potter, which were banned from the school’s library because they would turn us into devil worshippers who held clandestine chanting rituals in the woods. I always imagined the chanting to be like the ooga chacas at the beginning of Blue Swede’s hooked on a feeling, which made me wonder if the lead singer of Blue Swede, Björn Skifs, was actually the devil. However, the books were not my main interest. In a tall glass jar on the check-out lady’s desk sat long, rainbow-colored noodle-like erasers. For every day during the book fair I would enter the library and spend my fifteen minutes wiggling them around in the air. My mother gave me 10 dollars to spend, specifically on books. I knew she would figure it out if I bought an eraser because she just seemed to know ya know. I figured since I had already lied in the chapel, I was too far down the path of evil to turn back now, so when the librarian had her back turned, I slipped my hand into the jar and took a rainbow eraser. Man, it was so goddamn smooth. I shared my newfound revelation with Aimee: crime is fun. Together underneath the pine trees, we invented the con of the century. Aimee was not a particularly organized person. Her desk was less of a storage space and more of a lesson in entomology with approximately ten bags full of moths, a water bottle with a live praying mantis, and several dead worms crusted onto the metal cubby all covered with crumpled papers. Aimee was perpetually at odds with Ms. Fjelstead over this. That day, Aimee put on her innocent face, and asked Ms. Fjelstead to help her conquer this task. Ms. Fjelstead, being a stupid little shit, agreed. So Ms. Fjelstead, if you’re reading this, I want you to know that your screams still bring me joy to this day. 
 

Prose

My grandma’s rice is better than yours

    Featured in every Easter brunch and Christmas Eve dinner or special family gatherings for as long as I can remember, this dish consistently brings a smile to my face. When I was a kid, I looked forward to these holidays because I knew that I would get to eat my favorite dish, “Arroz Estica e Puxa” or “Sticky Rice.” However, this is not the ordinary sticky rice you’re most likely thinking of, but I’ll get into that later. To this day, I’m amazed at how my grandma managed to combine such simple ingredients into such a tasty and beautifully crafted dish. My mom has tried to recreate it, as well as my other grandma, but I promise you, no one can make it as perfectly as Vovo Dulce. 

    The dish is made in a large pan, and assembled carefully but in a messy way, if that makes any sense. Rice, ham, cheese, olives, and peas are all one needs to make this dish. At this point, you might be wondering why I love this dish so much if its so simple. The way the cheese gets pulled and the little pieces of ham that become hidden in the rice and the colorful appearance of the dish when it has just come out of the oven and the cheese on top is yellow and browning at the edges and the green of the peas scattered around the pan, was and still is very magical to me.
    
    Last December, I went back home to Brazil and on Christmas Eve we visited my great-grandmother’s (on my dad’s side) house for lunch, and I knew that my grandma was going to do some of the cooking in order to help my 94 year old great grandma. I secretly crossed my fingers and hoped that my favorite dish would be the main attraction, as I hadn’t eaten it since our last visit the previous year. So when I opened the door to help my grandma bring in presents and food into my great-grandmother’s house, and saw two pans of my favorite rice, I became ecstatic. (I remember being sad because I knew that I still had to wait for it to be put in the oven, instead of digging in right away.) It was a Christmas present all on its own. It had been at least a year since I got to experience this culinary masterpiece à la Dulce. Yes, I had asked my mom to make it, but her version doesn’t even come close to my grandma’s iconic cheesy rice. 

    The only thing I could think about was digging into the soft, warm, cheesy rice that was sitting right in front of me, the aroma taking over my sense of smell, as I watched my family sit down around the familiar table, that we had eaten meals at many times during my childhood (and we still do, just with less frequency). The two pans of rice had just come out of the oven and we could all hear and smell the sizzling cheese. I watched as other members of the family got spoonfuls of rice and had to cut the cheese with their hands because of how perfectly baked it was. My mouth watered at the sight. 

    When I finally got to spoon my first bite of the rice into my mouth, an interesting turn of events occurred. 1. I burnt my mouth because it had just come out of the oven. 2. When my tongue had recovered I finally could taste all of the familiar flavors. 3. I couldn’t stop eating it. 

    As we sat around the table talking and catching up on life, the hours passed and I continued to eat the rice. I think at one point it got cold, but I didn’t care. The different flavors reminded me of my childhood, when I would crawl under the large, dining room table in my grandparent’s apartment and sit there entertaining myself with small spoons and bowls. Or when I would stand on my tiptoes, wearing an apron and my hair pulled back, and attempt to reach the sink so I could help with the dishwashing after a meal. Or walking around the mall with my grandma. Or going to bakeries and buying fresh bread with my grandpa. Or one specific occasion when I left my shoes in their apartment and my grandpa wrote a beautiful poem about the small black flats I had forgotten. 

    It’s interesting to me how a taste, or a scent, or a texture can open floodgates in your mind that remind you of things that you had completely forgotten. This rice is nothing special, when I was a kid I liked it because of the flavors and the experience of the stretchy cheese. However, now I see the dish in a new light. When I moved from Sao Paulo, Brazil to the United States about 7 years ago, everything changed. As any other 8 year old that has to leave the only home they ever knew, I was hesitant. I miss my country very much, but I’ve learned to appreciate this new one as well. I don’t see my family as much, big family dinners have become rare occurrences. I had to quickly become accustomed to eating different, and unfamiliar foods. And I had to learn an entirely new language in less than one year; perhaps the most significant change. In terms of my favorite rice dish, I only have it when we go back to visit every other year but I have learned that the rarity of it is what makes it extra special, in my heart and my memories. Since the move I see the dish as a way of being transported, to simpler times, to my childhood, back to Brazil. 

Photo by Garrett Glasgow

prose 
In Hindi, a “dhaaba” is a roadside restaurant.
 
Positioned on the side of highways and sullied streets, dhaabas use distinct, chillied aromas to attract hordes of customers. Once inside, blackened rings of smoke waft out of primitive ovens called “tandoors,” and steel plates sit upon long wooden planks that make up the tables.
 
Here, the ambiance plays a different role. As opposed to the extravagance inherent in candle-lit dining and wine glasses that clink with every movement, dhaabas embrace the basics. They embody the aromatic memory of my mother’s cooking combined with a pinch of garlic, nutmeg, and personality.
 
If I tried to explain the meaning of a “dhaaba,” I would betray the unspoken yet widely understood personal and cultural implications of the word, so I rely on lengthy anecdotes.

In my family, “dhaaba” began with my parents.

Every Sunday morning, I woke up to simmering, brown flatbreads on the stove. I would skip brushing my teeth until after breakfast, as I had no desire to contaminate the flavors with lingering toothpaste. I always noticed my dad secretly tasting the food before any of us had the chance, and I looked forward to his animated smile.
 
Every Sunday morning, before I began to eat, I would wait until my dad muttered, “ye Archana ka dhaaba ka kamaal hai” as he compared my mother’s exquisite cooking to a “dhaaba.” His appreciative sighs became a part of my routine.

This routine produced a tangible nostalgia. For my parents, the word allows them to reminisce about running out of musty high school classrooms in search of the nearest eatery, while drenched from the sweltering sun. For me, the word conjures memories of heartfelt family dinners. I remember the moment my sister and I first recited my dad’s dhaaba-mantra with him. His smile widened.
My dad smiles whenever I long for my mother’s “dhaaba” while eating hardened PB&Js that engulf my tastebuds with artificial jelly. He smiles whenever his best friends converse through appreciative nods as their mouths are too stuffed with my mother’s “dhaaba” to speak. He smiles whenever my sister and I assemble more food on our plates than we can eat. 

My dad’s joy is contagious, and only a “dhaaba” can produce this type of joy. 

Whether this happiness stems from devouring coconut chicken curries after dance practice or enjoying garlic-infused lentils with my friends around the dining table, my mother’s “dhaaba” always manages to enliven the conversation. In the process, the “dhaaba” maintains my relationships with my friends and family. 

To me, a “dhaaba” represents more than a disheveled building on the street. A “dhaaba” allows my parents to reflect on their old memories, while also forming new ones with me. It produces genuine happiness within my community and also reinforces my relationships with my sister, my friends, and my culture. This process cannot be simplified into one definition. 

So, on the surface, “dhaaba” is a roadside restaurant.
 
But, underneath the surface, “dhaaba” is a modern representation of my nostalgia for and pride in my Indian culture. “Dhaaba” cannot be translated because this simplifaction would neglect my appreciation of my community. 

Finally, I could go on about how “dhaaba” is the only word qualified to describe my mother’s cooking, but I’ll leave you hungry for now.
 

Photo by Garrett Glasgow 

Prose

There is something unsettling about losing the ability to breathe. The air escapes like a punch to the gut and you’re left unsure of what just happened. When I was 14 years old, I lost my breath. 

When I was growing up, I remember my father talking about our wilderness trips and a worst case scenario; if I lost my way, or if my brother broke his leg in a canyon. The pocket where we kept the car keys became an instinct, and using the satellite phone became as intuitive as walking. The fear of these theoreticals helped prepare me to lead ventures into unknown territories where there is no one else for miles and miles. There is nothing else I want more. 

It is a brisk Thanksgiving day in Ghost Rider Canyon in Arizona, a route that I traveled hundreds of times. I go down first on my favorite rappel that stretched 80 feet and is tucked in a corner of the pale limestone. I take in the stunning view that felt just as impressive as the first day I had seen it.

While packing up the ropes, the words, “what is that?” spoken by my mother in a shaky voice will bring about chills whenever I hear them. “Is that a foot” followed. A steady pulse in my head became deafening as my heart lurched out of my chest considering whether or not the shape in the distance was an old car bumper. I find my gaze crossing paths with a mangled pair of legs crushed over the limestone wearing blue jeans and loose socks which poke out behind a bush that isn’t dense enough. My father took cautious steps towards the torso to make sure there was no breath. “It’s a dead body.” 4 simple words. 

Within that moment I am a popped balloon, the air vacating my lungs leaving me silent. I am paralyzed. Within a split second the familiar wilderness, which I spent so many years in cultivating my love for adventure with my family, had become overtaken with panic, doubt, and fear. The wild refuge filled with countless childhood memories with my older brother had been overrun with ominous shadows. 

Once the world started spinning again, the air came rushing back, and I let out a sob. My mother’s arms extended around me in a fleeting effort to hide the body. Walking down the canyon, I trip over my own feet questioning if the man knew how much pain his death brought me. The thoughts became darker and darker until I made the conclusion that I too would be killed that day in that canyon along with my family left alone to be found by yet another unfortunate thrill seeker.

My thoughts shifted towards him; Was it suicide? Did he fall? What was he doing? Why wasn’t he prepared? What if he was murdered? Who else is going to cry at this news?

The police report we received weeks later answered fewer questions than I would have liked. My parents told me an older man without family who loved photography simply fell. All that pain for one simple misplaced footstep.

Later I returned to that area again to complete another canyon that stretched over three miles and had thousands of feet of elevation gain. Cherry Canyon contained twelve repels all varying in length which takes all day invested in the process. I have the slightest hesitation going down first looking to make sure there is nothing but limestone and vegetation below me, or the slightest hesitation turning a corner while backpacking. Sometimes there is a skip of my heart beat when I see anything out of place in the wild, but it is short-lived. My brother’s loud dorky nature quickly diverts my attention and as we laugh, the moment passes.

Artwork by Lily Roberts

    prose 

    The rain-splattered letter arrived at 6:02 the morning after she hid the last corner of her room with words. She opened the envelope, fetched another tack, and searched for an empty patch of wall, forgetting she’d covered the last spot yesterday. Once she remembered, she pinned the letter to the ceiling instead. She laid on her back on her bed to read it. The ink-stained rainwater dripped off the letter onto her lips. It tasted of lemon pancakes, hot cocoa with a peppermint stick, a labrador on your lap and an old film on the screen. Everything tasted like lemon pancakes and hot cocoa nowadays, and lemon pancakes and hot cocoa tasted like “not anymore.”
    The letter was written twelve years ago, and her hair was dyed with grey water by the time she’d read it all. She sighed, got off her bed, and found her quill (a gift from a dozen birthdays ago—she used to love old things). With the ink drizzling from her hair, then the ink from a little bottle, she scratched out a reply.
    She folded up her response, slipped it into the damp envelope, and set it in her mailbox. Then she went back inside to wash her hair.

Photo by Garrett Glasgow 

                 prose                                                                                         

March 29, 2020

            He always sliced the apples that he brought out for our midday snacks. He claimed that they tasted better that way, that eating an apple whole reminded him of Snow White, and I wasn’t supposed to be a damsel in distress. I was always “supposed to be the hero of my own story, because men are usually the ones who screw up, they're the real damsels, just not in fairy tales.” So we ate the apples as slices, bit into the fruit and let juice spill on our shirts without wiping it away; life's messy, there’s no need to conceal it. I guess the apple slices became synonymous with summer in my mind, because we only ate them on the back porch, the one overlooking the lake in Hayward, Wisconsin, the one with the wooden pole marred by grizzly bear claws, when the sun beat down on us, stained my skin pink, left its permanent mark as freckles and never as a tan. 
            He told the greatest stories in between bites of Granny Smiths, his eyes sparkling with each tale he wove. His favorite way to tell a story was to sing it, to let his words out in a tonedeaf attempt at song, his voice echoing over the black ink water of Stonelake. I always wondered if the Northern Muskies froze when his words made the water ripple above their heads, if the frogs in my brother’s hand stopped their squirming for a moment to appreciate the spontaneity of a story drawn from his mind and lungs. 
            The pink roped nets with plastic handles held the fish that we had caught by dropping fish food into the lake, and pulling our hands, brandishing the nets, up when the smaller fish came to eat it, capturing them as they flopped in horror. We tossed them back into the water from the edge of the pier, suspended in the air for a moment before they were free again. He had taught us how to catch them with our hands, but, more importantly, he taught us to also let them go. They didn’t cook right, and tasted like leather when he poured olive oil over them in a frying pan to prove his point. There was no need to let them dry up on the docks, to needlessly kill another living creature.
            I grew to love exploring the woods with him, singing the Going on a Bear Hunt song. He always changed the steps to the cave where the bear supposedly lived, making each journey different. I tried to mimic it later on, when my younger cousins gathered around the campfire, but I could never remember my favorite parts, the parts he made up.
            We stopped visiting the lodge overlooking the lake when he was in the hospital. We stopped visiting altogether as a family. He had the same sparkle in his eye, it was just dulled beneath the fluorescent lights and linoleum floor. He turned his head away from us, electing to watch the game on the television tucked in the corner instead. He wanted to go outside, especially when our Easter celebration was held on the patio adjacent to the sliding glass doors in his room. The patio was a glorified sidewalk protruding out of the hospital like a thorn in it’s side, dully unlike the one we had eaten apple slices on in the summer, the one where storytelling became our pastime. 
            After he passed, after the funeral, I went back to the lodge. It was emptier without his voice, but it was the only place I could remember where he had been alive, not in the sense of a beating heart, but in songs rustling over his vocal chords and sparkling mischief in his eyes. I found an apple in the kitchen, left in a bowl with nothing else, forgotten in the center of the table. I picked it up, ran my hands over its dusty skin. I ran it under the tap, and found a knife to slice it up, the same way he had. Cutting board from the cupboard on the far left, hands curled while my nails dig into it, the tip of the knife going in the pocket where the brown stem protrudes from like a belly button. I bring the knife down to the cutting board, repeating it all the way around until the apple falls apart in pieces, the poisonous seeds revealed in the center. I bring the slices out on the cutting board, not bothering to grab a plate from the bottom drawer, and sit in our spot on the deck. The two rocking chairs angled towards each other with a side table wedged in between. I bite into the apples, and watch the sun as it dips nearer to the black water, letting the juice spill over my shirt. The breeze picks up, combing between the branches of the trees, and makes the rocking chair next to me, the empty one, shudder and rock gently back and forth. I can’t help but think he’s sitting there with me, watching the sunset on our lake, watching the juice of the apple dribble off of my chin. 

prose 

            A few months ago I made a playlist called Songs that Remind Me of Second Grade. Although this playlist has 74 songs, there are only a handful of songs that bring me back to the carefree, playful days of elementary school. Songs like "Rain in the Summertime" by The Alarm, "Good Life" by One Republic, and "The Whole of the Moon" by The Waterboys remind me of the playground in the fall, when the vibrant green drained out of the small oak trees and the small yard next to the chapel became splashed with a caramel hue. During recess, I would crouch on the wood chips and collect small pearly acorns that fell from the trees. 
            In the movie My Neighbor Totoro, dreams and reality are interwoven when the Totoro gives two girls a wrapped gift of acorns which they plant and (with the help of Totoro) grow into the clear night sky peppered with puffy clouds. When the tree reaches its full form, the girls cling to Totoro as he glides over the rice fields of the Japanese countryside. I remember a dream I had in elementary school in which I floated in the hall between the music room and the cafeteria, hovering a few feet off of the ground. The dream took place in such a realistic recreation of a typical environment in my life that I could have believed it to be true. When I looked down into my hands at the sunlight glinting off of the polished syrup colored acorns, I wonder if I counted them and thought about showing them to my friends, or if I imagined the leaf-wrapped acorns from Totoro, the dreams created on billowing white clouds and the buoyancy of flight.

photo by Cate Christiansen 

Poetry

The petals will be sand in my rain jacket pocket.
They lick dryly against the polyester static
in the zipped cell set flat against my chest.
I was taught to leave them until they
shriveled by their own means, the only pressure
my movement, my legs gliding through circles
on the spokes of my droplet-dotted bicycle in evening’s rain,
the jerks and shifts to avoid senseless puddles threading waves,
energy, loops of ice pebbles
up through my muscles, startling my core
and promoting the slight saunter, delayed erosion
of the curled-up, cocoon shape of decay
beyond replenishment dangling
in my hidden pocket.

When I feel their knots and spikes
jutting slightly against the thin, glossy fabric of my coat
to skim my chest, I know that their abrasion
counts on more than the donut circulation
of pulses in my legs, the swaying of my torso
set on an evening of shades lighter than gray
but softer, less blinding than white:
an evening where my head moves from ground
to overhead, to every side as lustrous cars,
colors of maroon, navy, black,
ripe cherry
paint strokes of my reflection beating by.
The people on the sidewalk
glance down at their puddle-tinted soles
though inside their heads feel nothing close to dread.

When I halt by the sidewalk, slip off my bike,
tumble on sleekness,
When I rush through the black metal
gates, dripping and shedding minced tile slates,
trickling beetle skins of paint to the garden,
my hand hesitant as it hovers before my chest,
I think to
pinch the crinkling petals of the tulip
which once sat dry above dampened dirt
that had not yet turned to mud. I remember there was
a fresh series of days when stems cascaded white silk,
were ruffled against softly by brown rabbits,
so delicately skipping, wisping their rain-stained,
acute triangle noses
against flourishing roots and petal skins, glazed by a natural
film of strawberry milk, frosted white or evergreen-mist blue.

Never bring fingers
like pennies
of frozen plush
to a dry, wrinkled yellow stem:
a stem that may wiggle, hold on
but proceeds to crack.

Art: Flower Fossil by Grace Baranko

Poetry

Born anew in elasticity, beige and borrowed,
I bathe in barrels of crimson wine
Until it stains in droplets of sacrament on my skin,
Unrelenting, like ashen sediment.

I bathe in barrels of crimson wine
In drunken baptisms veiled by vapor haze.
Unrelenting, like ashen sediment,
My morals bleed in the eggshell of stolen scriptures.

In drunken baptisms veiled by vapor haze,
Could I distill what drapes above in a sole stream?
My morals bleed in the eggshell of stolen scriptures,
Like ink tarnishing cobalt-stained glass.

Could I distill what drapes above in a sole stream?
Its contents coursing, intravenous and acute,
Like ink tarnishing cobalt-stained glass.
I exist outside of solemn syllables and damning.

Its contents coursing, intravenous and acute,
I’m ridden with rituals composed of moss and memory.
I exist outside of solemn syllables and damning,
Evergreen and unforgetting.

I’m ridden with rituals composed of moss and memory,
Curiosity like venom dispersed in opaque milk.
Evergreen and unforgetting,
Do I fear both the life I live and its residue?

Curiosity like venom dispersed in opaque milk,
I feel tangible when speaking in what is not said,
Do I fear both the life I live and its residue?
Sordid in silence, an apple in my teeth.

I feel tangible when speaking in what is not said,
Like how blind blends into midnight with ease.
Sordid in silence, an apple in my teeth,
The remnants of the Sistine chapel on my palm.
Like how blind blends into midnight with ease,
At the week’s closure, I lament and wash away
The remnants of the Sistine chapel on my palm,
Calloused from judgment’s embers.

Poetry

I used to lounge on the Nile flood plain
to watch the river churn and cut the sands,
and to think how people cheered
for my glory long ago
and now there is only the same glory to cheer for.
Yes, I was great;
I saw it in the flames,
the cascades of shifting bodies in the streets,
proud of swordsmen, land-winners,
fledgeling charioteers.
For them I was enigma,
Ramesses, the Great Ancestor, the god
who tinkered in the life-forge.

But sulking at the Nile bank, I saw rocks
moved and smoothed and shattered, simple water
ravaging the earth, and my mind sprung
up and asked the gods to let me
become water, so Ra told me,
smirking, I was a man.

Yes, I was a man, but maybe
if I climbed high enough
I would be a man emancipated
from the anchors of the world.
Yes, I was a man, but I was a man
deserving, and for years
I climbed the climb to power.

In the seventh year I summited, stumbling
in the sky-wind as gods blew
out their lungs to sound
a warning over the winds, calling
you are no god, just
one speck
on Ta Dehent. Nothing around.
No yielding soldiers, complacent
prince, palace, throne,
glory. Sand. There was sand and I wilted
into it. I took to the tomb.

Now, at night the Nile is not mine;
the red sky sees an empire
wrinkling
and a man in the gloom stands
with a pensive lean.
I am granite; I cannot turn;
neither of us can see the other’s eyes.
In the prelude to boundlessness,
marble does not freeze him,
though his body
mocks me. He forgets
how it is to have everything
and still for the world to spin
unsatiated.

Art: Destruction by Jade Wilson

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Song by Khruangbin 

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Song by José González 

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Song by Chet Baker 

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Song by the Fleet Foxes

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Biography

Jericho Brown grew up in Shreveport, Louisiana, and worked as a speechwriter for the mayor of New Orleans before earning his PhD in literature and creative writing from the University of Houston. He also holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of New Orleans and graduated with a BA from Dillard University in 1998. Brown is the author of The Tradition (Copper Canyon Press, 2019); The New Testament (Copper Canyon Press, 2014), which received the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award; and Please (New Issues, 2008), which received the 2009 American Book Award. Brown is the recipient of a Whiting Writer’s Award and has received fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Krakow Poetry Seminar in Poland, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University. He is currently an associate professor of English and creative writing at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. 

Discussion

I became a poet because I like listening to people talk much more than I am interested in what they have to say.

I became a poet because I like listening to people talk much more than I am interested in what they have to say. I am interested in the way things were delivered or the way people say things. I grew up in the black church where people were always going the extra mile to say something in a way that is beyond just saying. It was never, “Pass me the program.” It was, “The program that you are holding I would also like to hold.” 

The first time I finished reading a book of poems, I said, ‘Mommy, I read a book’ and the face my mother made was amazing. 

I became attracted to poetry in particular when I was a kid. I was very fortunate to have a mother who couldn’t afford child care. She was an improvisational genius. She would take me and my sister to the library when she had to be somewhere. We spent a lot of summers in the library. The librarians and my mother didn’t have to be worried about us to tearing anything up. We weren’t going to run crazy in the library. The other wonderful thing about libraries is there were no computers, at least back then. So where we would go in the library there was nothing there but books. We didn’t have the internet to distract us from reading. Poems were interesting because they were short. I would look a page of prose and I’d be so worn out. I thought, “How am I supposed to do all that?” I would look at a poem and be like, “Oh Lord Jesus that’s only a fourth of the page! I can do this!” 

The first time I finished reading a book of poems, I said, “Mommy, I read a book” and the face my mother made was amazing. It was the only time she ever made it. She said, “My baby, my baby read a book?” I’ll never forget that. I wanted to see that again. So, I would be in a rush to get to the library and I would read every book of poetry I could find. I fell in love with poems then because I wasn’t under the impression that I had to explicate the poem. There was no need for interpretation. I just needed to read them and enjoy them for the music of language. I didn’t know what was going on and I didn’t feel like I needed to know what was going on. 

I write poems asking questions of my life. At the root of my poems I don’t have any intentions. I don’t have any designs. 

I write poems asking questions of my life. At the root of my poems, I don’t have any intentions. I don’t have any designs. At the root of them I’m thinking, “Well, let me figure this out. Let me see where I’m wrong. Let me see where they’re wrong. Let me just blow that thing up.” I guess that some people don’t like that. I don’t think that many people who don’t like how I do what I do are looking at me. I think the people who are looking at me are the people who want to hear what I have to say. 

At the root of my poetry is tenderness, not politics. That’s what I’m trying to do. I’m just trying to be more tender and put more tenderness into the world.

The part of my life that has the biggest influence on my writing is the willingness to fall in love and fall out of love and make love and be a romantic, intimate person. Ultimately, I’m a love poet. People like talking about me being a political poet and that’s fine. But people don’t really have much to say about me being a love poet because they have to think before writing their essay or what not. I think it also has to do with the fact that I’m black. 

When I say something about the police or something everyone is like,“Oh let’s see what he’s got to say about the police.” I think on the whole that people still have a hard time understanding that black people walk around here falling in love, that they are in a rush to get home so they can cuddle with somebody. There’s a wholeness to being that I know among black people. But I don’t know if people looking at black people see that. They see the ways of the black people can be offended, but they don’t necessarily see the fact that we can fall in love. At the root of my poetry is tenderness, not politics. That’s what I’m trying to do. I’m just trying to be more tender and put more tenderness into the world. 

Video: Poet and professor Jericho Brown, director of Emory's Creative Writing Program, reads the poem "Stand" from his acclaimed collection The Tradition.

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