University of San Francisco's Student-Run Literary Magazine
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
by Steven O. Young Jr. I thought up a story for you. Honest! And it’s not that I can’t remember what it is, though I’m racking my brain, rummaging around these russet roots as if it somehow seeped through my scalp, putting on a good show. It’s simple and straightforward. Too simple and straightforward. It’s… Continue reading Storytelling
by Charles Kell There were beads in the trees, hair & water mixing in a torn reflection. New Orleans, drunk on hurricanes & thinking of Li Po: The birds are gone / and people are few! Days were sweltering— I watched for a long time a rusty trumpet float on Pontchartrain. Nights were cooler. I… Continue reading Book of Windows
by Colin Keating 1 I’m in imminent danger of getting Way Too Psyched. I’ll try to end this song sweetly but no promises. My back hurts and my neck is a cubicle. The airtight compartment of my life is collapsing into a traffic cone, a backwash attendant, your own megaphone… But! All my fucking quilting… Continue reading Let’s Get a Party Started (I’m Fucking Serious)
by Alden Wallace Against my will and wholly ignorant of it the leaves are falling again. The sky floats by the glass. The grey sea rages under a grey sky dotted with crows sailing home. O to be soaring and knowing all. Made of clay but today feeling like stone—sand pulled back slowly into the… Continue reading Big Rain from a Small Cloud
by August Chaffin My father asked me if I’d ever written any poems about him. “There’s one about your black widow bite.” I said, “it was an allegory.” I revealed no more. I was too scared he’d understand what I’ve been trying to say for my whole life. movement 3 by Sopi August Chaffin (he/him/his)… Continue reading In the Car
Ignatian Literary Magazine 