University of San Francisco's Student-Run Literary Magazine
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 Walter Weinschenk Sailors flee from landTo leave their pain behind;They cannot bear the loss of loveThat pulsed through armsThat reached for them at night,But grew exhaustedIn the course of time. Sailors are deluded:The ocean offers no asylum;The sea is not a refugeAnd loss cannot be thrown awayOr left upon the wharf;A sailor cannot fly… Continue reading I’ll Be a Sailor
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 Sam Kaspar Tattoo Parlor: a superficial looking endeavor gets under your skininner queries waken with the tingling in my limbshelloget in syncInk weariesNice assCanvas, vast expansive, needles prickI stay whole and don’t let it break me thoughI internalize lots of dyeFor a tattered up wolf tatDid I really like it enough to go this… Continue reading Nothing A Doll
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 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 Victor Pambuccian it took a meetingfor us to noticethat neither windnor wavesnor rolling thunderare neededfor a green fruitinvisiblesoft to theunavailable touchus embracingthe airwith that look oflemon scentat dawnto ripenon its ownin the absenceof holding handslocked-together eyesthe sound ofbreathingthe maddening silenceof a smileit's as ifthe separating spacethe individual habitsthe patterns of sleepthe fading memoryall conspiringare… Continue reading how could we ever not know
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 Ramon Jimenez Leather and leftover tires.The wheels of my feet.I felt a superpower when I had them on.I could jump like Jordan and climb like a jaguar. How I struggled to grow upand carve out an identity on this stolen land of America.Huaraches let me stomp on the pride of the occupiers.These slippers of… Continue reading Huaraches
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
Ignatian Literary Magazine 