University of San Francisco's Student-Run Literary Magazine
by Anna Tjeltveit And suddenly we are comforting each other,my hand on your shoulder, yours on my heart,resting in uncertainty. “Your faith is enough,”I say, though now I am an unbeliever.You hold me closer, but silence sits between us still. I believed in you, behind the altar,yours the pulpit, yours the pews. In the children’s homily,… Continue reading My Mother and I Reflect on My Atheism
by Jacob Dimpsey Lakshmi told me Manjeet’s parents sacrificed him to the gods. Cut his liver from his side and offered it dark and pulsing to a witch doctor. People are growing desperate, Lakshmi said, and some have turned to black magic. Monsoon season came and went with little more than a few drops of… Continue reading Puja
by Joe Bisicchia We may fear the tired, no longer gold mustard,all the now sky blackened gel of who we werein the dark Whirlpool, old in the shuttered cold.Yes, check our chests to see if we’ve expired. Goodness, is there not a song within our souls?Are we not still same as all who orbit eternity?The… Continue reading Inner Space
by Zach Murphy Stewart came from a town where the water was abundant but never clean. Lillian came from a town where there wasn’t enough water to keep the wildfires at bay. Every Sunday morning they’d meet at a lone, wooden bench by the secluded pond at St. Catherine Trail. In the middle of the… Continue reading The Mallards of St. Catherine
by Tiffany Aurelia The palm opens—a map of being.Everything has left me except for the humin my chest and we searchfor familiar things. I bring my handscloser, trace each palm lineto the past where an ocean from three summers agopools into the shape we make whenwe carry a weight we cannot keep forever.Somehow, I’ll forever… Continue reading Palm Reading for the Blues
by Zero Ramos Laforga A House in a New Brunswick Reminiscent of Andrew Wyeth by Jim Ross Zero Ramos Laforga is a Filipino queer trans artist, writer, musician, and educator from the San Francisco Bay Area. He is currently pursuing a BFA in English literature and MAT in urban education and social justice from the… Continue reading is this thing on?
by Laila Jones you've decidedto kick off your shoes.without hesitation,no regard to your woman. as your shoes fall, your feet riseto the coffee table I built.out of every poem I'd written about you.sock stained cursive, one platewhen there’s room for two. cream chrysanthemums spotted brownin the foggy vase I begged you to change.petals withering, almost… Continue reading Riesling
by Jaden Fong I. Wooden pier splintersbattle the indigo threadsstationed on the bottomsof our newly fading jeans. Our frozen breaths weavewith hot umami steam andconcocts something newamidst the creaking sea. Clumsy, bulbous clumpsof San Francisco sourdoughtossed about carelessly throughthe air like birthday confetti— into the mouths of fishes belowin the bay, between the woodslats, on… Continue reading Eating Clam Chowder with Mom
by L. M. Pino The Woman Without Skin 1. She finds you at a party. The grad student bar is hot and cramped, a pulsing mass of bare arms, thighs, collarbones. She turns among them, green eyes almost glowing, skin reflecting the gold of the lights. You spend the night pretending not to watch her… Continue reading The Woman Without Skin
by MK Punky Confess with me on supplicating kneesI've never known you in the flesh We sinnersunderstand the knotty eschatologypledged by unknown authorscleansing the affront of ignorancewith a soapy rag of certaintyall of us Saint Paulsslinging imprecations at a heathen worldcloser to annihilation than salvation To know you lordI must make love to you lordhear… Continue reading Knowing
Ignatian Literary Magazine 