University of San Francisco's Student-Run Literary Magazine
by Sam Moe The night after my grandmother’s funeral, while I’m half-asleep on her faded gold couch in the living room, where below our fourth-floor apartment are people screaming, and singing, and laughing, in the distance there are sirens and more laughter—I hear someone—or something—lean into my ear and sigh once, loudly. * Ghosts. Poltergeists.… Continue reading Ghost City
by Angela Townsend If my world shrinks to all that my arms can carry, Monsieur Dupont shall be saved. Along with my mother’s quilts and my hard drive, I will salvage the wiry Gund hedgehog from 1986. He is six inches of plush and polyfill. He is an important Frenchman. He is language and longing… Continue reading Monsieur Dupont
by Carl Boon The pictures prove our parents were young, with neat clothes and unscarred skin. The pictures prove they did things: picnicked at sundown among yellow-studded Pennsylvania hills, stood in line on Friday afternoons at the First National Bank, paychecks in hand, and drove Pontiacs, their destinations sometimes unclear, their Amoco maps folded incorrectly.… Continue reading Notes For Our Parents
by Sura K. Hassan I “Run, run for the Sun.” One of the shortcomings of growing up in the dry, scorching, crumbling desert city that is Karachi was the inability to escape from the ever-present, nauseatingly-bright sun. My poor, dear mother, maternal aunt, and even grandmothers all tried to do something about the permanent tan… Continue reading Seven Things Nana Used to Say
by Elaine Ferrell Gabrielle was sixteen to my thirteen. She openly smoked, drank on the sly, and was often in trouble with her parents. I worshiped her. I admired Gabby’s lanky posture, for I was short and slouchy. I revered her long, straight hair, since my own was curly, tangled, and wild. Lamenting my boring… Continue reading Chasing Gabby
by Stephanie Michele-Hempel At the hospital — & now, I still love your dislocated knee. I miss the way it bent before the wreck. It holds you up so differently now. I think of your blood clot often, nestled there on the back of your leg, a living egg of pain puncturing reality, soft, bloody… Continue reading At the Hospital
by Violet Piper I ache with Love. I have bent over and around myself for months, avoiding the mirror. There I am, though, in the reflection on the subway window, with the tunnel behind me. I look pained and afraid of the pain—like I stubbed my toe on the podium during a public speech. I… Continue reading Throat Awareness and the Unfair Thoughts
by Ashlyn Inman It’s strange being in a place that you spent most of your life in and feeling like everything is familiar except one thing. For as long as I could remember, we had a dog in the house. Even before we lived in this particular house, we had a dog in the family.… Continue reading Dog in a Box
by Beverly Rose Joyce My grandpa drove a truck. George, not Russ. It was just like the one on Sanford and Son. But green. Not emerald or kelly or hunter; more army. He kept in the back the tools of his trade: trowel, spackle knife, levels, floats, mixer, sponges, chalk, thread, hammer, hawk. And, of… Continue reading Her George
by Judith Ford It’s dusk and I’m at the beginning of a four-mile run. I’m half-listening to songs by Enya through my Walkman headphones. I’m running beside a busy road but I barely hear the cars above Enya’s voice. It’s 1987 and I’m thirty-nine years old. Today is Christmas Eve and I’m trying to shed… Continue reading Hands On My Back
Ignatian Literary Magazine 