orbitals

by Madi Giovina

after Micheal McCann

lying together,
bodies loud & mouths quiet,
morning becomes night becomes morning again

we don’t know how much time has passed but 
the sun has risen & set & risen again
& we have risen & set & risen & set
& laughed & sweat & laughed & sweat

& the shadow of the lace curtain falls
on your face & i wonder if it falls on mine, too—
soft lines crisscrossing from cheekbone to cheekbone,
a dark line along your nose, & your eyes, bright like always

& none of this was supposed to happen,
not in that dark room on 19th & Page,
or in this half-sunlit room on 4th & Dickinson,
& especially not in the overpriced studio on Highland & Bennington, 
a plane ride & what seems like a lifetime away;
the only thing in common
the rising & setting & rising & setting 

in San Francisco today, the sky is orange
& you whisper to me, where do you want to be when the world ends?

Kellen’s Tenderloin

by Kellen Stahl

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Madi Giovina is a writer based in Berkeley, CA. Her work has been featured in Ninth Letter, Capsule Stories, and various zines. She runs a small press, Perennial Press, and lives with her cat, Shrimp. She is a former USF student.

Kellen Stahl was a nonbinary pillar of the recovering community at the Salvation Army Harbor Lights Residential Treatment Center in San Francisco. They passed away of natural causes in the middle of the Covid pandemic, three years sober. Their sketches of San Francisco are testimony to their love of The City.