University of San Francisco's Student-Run Literary Magazine
by Colleen Markley Clarice wasn’t sure which was odder: that she was becoming invisible or that her husband hadn’t noticed. “I must be overtired,” she remarked to John, examining the skillet she was scrubbing through an opening in the back of her hand. Was this glaucoma? She glanced up from the suds to the window… Continue reading Vanishing Act
by Olaf Kroneman 1967 was a bad year to be a hospital intern. My first rotation was unlucky. I was assigned to surgery during Detroit’s 1967 riot. The suffering, panic, and blood overflowed. Forty-three people died. Most of them came through our emergency room, and those that made it went to surgery. Those that didn’t… Continue reading The Elephant and the Dove
by Terence Patrick Hughes Tom Tucker said he saw a dead body but when we got there it was gone. I had been minding my business that early evening outside of the house, transistor radio set against the top riser of the front steps, barely catching the signal of the Red Sox game with enough… Continue reading Tom Tucker’s Dead Body
by Robert Stone Finally, or so they thought, they had come to the last room in the house. After months of living like squatters in this grand old place, he said. She said that was just an expression people used. Even so, there was a pile of empty boxes in the hall. Their belongings had… Continue reading Wallpaper
by Katherine Hughbanks A bell above the door jingled, announcing Mark’s entrance to the shop. The din of rain and traffic outside hushed as the door stuttered shut, and a peculiar combination of eucalyptus and lilies greeted him, the scents taking up the space of the tiny store. He lowered the soggy newspaper he had… Continue reading The Blossom Shop, 1982
by Lena Beck 5:50 a.m. Gina filled the kettle with tap water and rested it on the stove coil. After flipping a switch to the left of the stovetop, the coil lightened to a warm red. She pressed her hands together and looked around. Everything else was done. Each square formica table was pristine: napkins… Continue reading Lunchtime at the Spaceworks Cafe
by Jessica Hsu I wanted to write a story. In a book I’d read, a little girl traversed the galaxy with a young woman. I wanted to write a story like that. Instead, I was stuck here. If this refrigerator in front of me was a planet’s surface, would it be like one of those… Continue reading The Dinner
by Mila Danilov I wake to darkness so opaque, I can’t see my hand in front of my own face. My limbs are clammy with salt-water air and I inhale the smell of my skin. It doesn’t smell of anything but residual bug spray. No warmth or familiarity. In the darkness, I can see a… Continue reading Juene
by Mary P. Chatfield Dear Mr. and Mrs. Mansfield, I am writing to thank you when I want to be writing a poem for your generous gift to our year-end appeal. my appeal is always for a poem about how the streetlight turns the snow the color of lemon sherbet, how the geese honk and… Continue reading Charity Case
by Mary P. Chatfield Translation is always about loss as if you were looking through a glass the sight plain enough the tang and the touch missing the skull beneath the word’s skin. Catullus knew this when he described how the great gods came to the wedding feast bearing whole meadows of flowers whole forests… Continue reading Wrestling with Catullus XIV
Ignatian Literary Magazine 