University of San Francisco's Student-Run Literary Magazine
by Amanda Vogt I met a boy at the swimming pool once. He was skinny and flat—like all it would take was one jab of my finger to send him stumbling backward, sinking below the ripples of the water. We stood chest to chest, too close to the ledge, his suit dripping icy splashes onto… Continue reading The Swimming Pool
by Aamena Lalji We eat popsicles in front of the television, sucking on them ‘til our cheeks are sore, peeling like wallpaper. Red juice drips down both our chins. You break the stick in half and tuck the pieces beneath your top lip, over your front teeth, smile that gummy smile at me. “I’m a… Continue reading Walrus
by R. H. Nicholson Father Francis Paganini was dead. He had collapsed in the rectory kitchen while drinking a glass of water as he cooled down from playing basketball with the fifth-grade boys at St. Joseph of Arimathea School. A youthful, vigorous man of deep faith, whose unbound energy was contagious among his parishioners, Father… Continue reading Father Frank’s Funeral
by Leslie Benigni The woods bring me back to myself and to myself I shall go, not wider but deeper. Doing things for myself, such a formerly unknown thing, to help myself be myself, doing things for myself. The woods give me respite and recharge. Off on a journey to the woods to nowhere, a… Continue reading November Reeling
by Joshua Monroe After making love, he usually went straight to his desk by the bed, typed away on his refurbished typewriter. An heirloom from one of his clients—he mentioned that once. While he typed, apparently unaware of the previous moments and of my cheeks, still flushed, I liked to imagine he was writing a… Continue reading The Typist
by K Roberts They dug up the time capsule ahead of schedule. Loganville High needed a new gym, so the statue of our mascot, Jersey Jerry, was uprooted along with the southeast parking lot and a laptop-sized locked metal box intended to be buried for a century. The treasure chest had lasted 52 years, and… Continue reading Time Capsule
by Sean Padraic McCarthy When Julia awoke, her mother was already up, sitting at the table in the kitchen, looking out the back window upon the wood. There was a steep hill rising up from the edge of the wood, and now it wasn’t summer anymore, and all the leaves were gone from the trees,… Continue reading The Devil in the Wood
by Joe Baumann Fritz hid the wings for Otto’s wake. He donned the Ted Baker trench coat Otto gifted him nearly a decade before and which Fritz had given more care and attention than any other possession so that it still looked new, wearing it over his sports coat, beneath which the wings were pinned.… Continue reading Vulture
by Alex Scaife I Water drained slowly into the copper pipes beneath me, with a churning sound that continued until the spinning mass of liquid had disappeared. I lay naked with damp, tangled strands falling across my face and beads of sweat clinging to my forehead. Red veins meandered through the whites of my eyes… Continue reading Mayakovsky
by Alex Landrum Tyler looked up at the hard, blue sky. A vulture swooped with its black wings stretched into a V. The twelve-year-old boy shuddered. He couldn’t believe what had happened. His stomach knotted with fear just as his foot turned on a piece of loose gravel that caused him to skid forward, bumping… Continue reading Martin’s Last Task
Ignatian Literary Magazine 