The following selections are from our 2018 printed journal.

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Editors:
Haley Paxton/ Varena VonMelker/ Monet Sutch/ Jennifer Wurtele/ Izábel Habel/ Chuck Kornbrodt/ Christopher Chase/ Amber French/ Brian King/ Christy Avila/ Cory Tollefson/ Isaac Duke/ Jake Edgar/ Kari Houghton/ Rory Elliot/ Holleé Tripp

Advisor(s):
Justin Rigamonti, Porter Raper, Joan Swinney, and Zachary Schomburg

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in print CONTENTS:

• MKC….. Kari Houghton
• Twelve Bends….. Rory Elliot
• “Where Did they All Vanish to?”….. Ace Bogess
• The Ruins….. Timothy E. G. Bartel
• Money for Candy….. Shelly Cato
• Interview….. Cheryl Folland
• Lattes and Labiaplasty….. Jessica Mehta
• Water Study #7….. Joshua Baker
• Questions for Water….. Joshua Baker
• Time for Return….. Linda Ashok
• Society Flawed….. Chastity McCourt
• Candy Ass….. Chloe Monet Sutch
• Bodies, Draft….. Linda Ashok
• Empty….. Holleé Tripp
• Adapted….. C. M. Tollefson
• Bike Ride After Kazumi Said….. Chloe Monet Sutch
• Neither Nor….. Leisa Haddad
• You’d be Twelve….. Cheryl Folland
• The Inch of Ground….. Ricardo Zegri
• Camp Chair Staring at Horizons….. Joshua Baker
• Desert Road Snapshot….. Joshua Baker
• Turpentine….. Chloe Monet Sutch
• To Give Rain….. Linda Ashok
• Dear Mom….. A. Adams
• Street Lamp….. Shreya Pabbaraju
• Satyavachan….. Jessica Mehta
• Hanging….. Shreya Pabbaraju
• The Man Next Door….. Kari Houghton
• Padma….. Shreya Pabbaraju
• Morning Residue….. Holleé Tripp
• Post-Partum….. Linda Ashok
• The Street Poet….. Tom Smario
• Caterpillar….. Ace Bogess
• Labanotation….. Ray Osborn
• Monkey See, Monkey Do….. Sam Vaughn
• Don’t be Sad, Chrysostom….. Dmitry Blizniuk
• Vidal….. C.M. Tollefson
• What Are You?….. Autumn Slaughter
• Night of the Bite….. Zach Neidlinger
• White Pulse….. S. A. Leger
• Flooding Soul….. Jordan Warren
• Wedding Vows….. C. M. Tollefson
• The Arboretum….. July Westhale
• Green Boots….. C.M. Tollefson
• The Servant of the Architect….. Timothy E. G. Bartel
• My Stomach My Thoughts….. Kyle Trujillo
• Casting a God Shadow….. Chloe Monet Sutch
• I Sleep in Fear….. Chloe Monet Sutch
• Wind….. Cheryl Folland
• Winter Without Her….. C. M. Tollefson
• Apotheosis….. Ben Troy
• A Sidewalk View of Time….. Joshua Baker
• The Sacred and the Mundane….. Breanna Lilly
• Still Life With No Carpet….. C. M. Tollefson
• Sonnet II: For Pure Moods….. Chloe Monet Sutch

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Selections

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Money For Candy
by Shelly Cato

And it’s like walking up to the bus monitor after school and you say can I have some money for candy he says no take off your shirt you’re not the president’s kid or nothin’ and you do and you walk up to him and stick out your palm and all he says is no take off your pants what you think you are I don’t want to see you holdin’ out your hand for money and so you do and he says no I want it all off and for some reason that you don’t know some reason in your past some reason like an image of a fireball red-edged crescent moon on your eyeballs you take it all off and stand shining naked before him and all those women who came before you appear and disappear and go ahead of you bending forward like harps in a row to glisten and shimmer your mothers and grandmothers great-grandmothers all so you take everything off and walk up to him stripped bare naked and present and say, is this enough? is this enough? Close enough, he says.

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Satyavachan
by Jessica Mehta

Say something in Gujarati and I see you
as you were years ago, in the bars
next to gargantuan women, faded flowers
suckling your youth, moving quick as hummingbirds
flashing crow’s feet with a deftness
that blurred their age. Feed me by hand
like you used to, change my water for yours,
the one ringing with ice
and tell me you love me
even throughout all the changes,
after all these years.

My father told me, Be careful,
you have that wandering way.

Just like him, whom I see in your slowness
to laugh, the oil slicks of your eyes. I chose
you, I chose
an incredible life.

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Vidal
by C. M. Tollefson

“Love arrived may find us
someplace else: either born or
sleeping, and what choice have we
but to rise…“
-July Westhale

Time, in all her racemose vicissitudes,
split me from you like a log

(I am reminded of this every time I chop
whatever the kids these days chop for firewood:

How we were ravaged from continent
into islands, beaten by waves and left there

only able to communicate via sunsets
and even then said only silence).

I find it remarkable how- on the long voyage
from home to home- we had little to remark,

save the weather, or how this movie was better
than that one, or what to have for dinner.

I should have told you what I was thinking;
that I would somehow shrink our boat down

and fit it into a bottle, so that even if we capsize
we will stay dry and happy at the bottom

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The Arboretum
by July Westhale

Since it’s just me here I
fumble freely between sheets,
sweat and mean it, stay too long
in the room without rain or snow
or moon, no post man, no man,
phone, book review, face except
my cat’s, who can tell when I’ve last
combed my hair. I used to gussy
up, to be giddy, I used to make myself
a flower, exit the room like a bloom,
color myself depending on insects
I wanted to eat me. Now, I understand
you. This graceless world. Why choose,
as in, make a choice, to never wake up.
The moon is worth shutting down, blinds
against glass as thin as a cardigan. When
born, no one tells you you had it good
in the womb, room service, ergonomics,
long dream shifts. Who can fault a person
for wanting to return to that? On weeks
when bombs are careless, that panic room
is appealing- pull up the sheets. Let
your body do the thing it does best- rest.
Be like a baby in your own arms, world
curled around you for better or worse,
a busted thing. Things. You’re always
complicit, responsible, treasonous.