University of San Francisco's Student-Run Literary Magazine
by Travis Stephens Loose valves, a rocker tip-tapper, something out of whack in my chest. It rattles. Bangs. Time for a tune up, god knows, not a replacement, maybe a little service. Pluck it out. Set it on the work bench. Pressure wash it of memory, of rust and greasy stuff. Maybe a new coat… Continue reading Heart Medicine
by Kirby Michael Wright Few read anymore, so engraving my poem on a marker is a waste. Buying a plot's pricey too. Cremation? A bargain if I catch a deal making an advanced purchase. Feed my ashes to that giant Norfolk with the ocean view. Pray for my soul during feeding? Forget it. Instead, play… Continue reading Final Request of a Poet
by Candice Kelsey Today, we are ordered into total lockdown. I tell my students to cluster away from the doors, Avoid direct visibility of scope & crosshairs. 12-gauge semiautomatic shotguns, Glock 20s rarely miss. Their assignments become locking doors, stacking Desks in barricade, turning out lights. I would gladly, without any hesitation, take A spray… Continue reading This is Only a Drill
In Memory of W.S. Merwin by Trina Gaynon You opened a door to a nightmare. I don't Remember where the walk took me. I cannot tell. Shadows on shadows clouded my vision Of broken lands. Long blue shadows would reign, Made colder by rare blue skies of a belated Spring. Mostly, our sun hides its… Continue reading The Last One
by Scout Faller stained as we are with forgetting. sitting like an idiot and with your one spoken language, american english, a poorly fitted coat. hair flat, face to the sun like you knew all her names before addressing her. dripping with the exigence, a snotty bitch—reaching for the coffee cup in a way that… Continue reading notes app poem
by Allen Keith The only faces left are on the clock and the shocked sockets of my walls; one staring back from a mirror, dazed, looking a thousand yards deeper than need be. I asked for this, wanted it, fought for it. It takes effort to attain solitude in a city of six million morons.… Continue reading Cheers
by Rhonda Browning White She hangs bundles of lavender, peppermint, catnip, and chamomile that dangle like hands tied at fragile wrists drying into skeletal bones to be crumbled into usefulness beyond their death Dangle like hands tied at fragile wrists beside stitched chimes of leather britches, beans she will soak back to life in winter,… Continue reading Delicacies
by Travis Stephens She ladles dressing on the salad with a distracted profligacy; it is called Green Goddess, and I drop two cherry tomatoes to the floor. Or are they grape tomatoes? Tiny orbs of seed and acid, like the scrotum of summer, perhaps, or the tiny budding breasts of memory. Or fruit. Not a… Continue reading Pomp & Circumstance
by Eitan Perlin I've been told many times by many people I remind them of someone they knew who killed themselves it's odd to be a specter a reflector of a long love lost or a good friend gone it doesn't sting nor am I complaining merely stating the peculiarity of embodying a medium ushering… Continue reading I, Charon
by Catherine Stansfield I've learned that every day is the day you died each moment, the phone call, empty on my side as a parking lot at dusk, when the sun sets and the masses clear and the deer have already crossed the sea of asphalt in search of green instead of three staring eyes—headlights… Continue reading One Year Later
Ignatian Literary Magazine 