University of San Francisco's Student-Run Literary Magazine
Issue 35
for Philip Levine by Stephen Barile His name is sewn in script On the oval patch over his left breast, Lemon. The shirt-pocket bulges With something kept hidden. Machine oil stains his coveralls. Under a cap, with a metal-buckle, He smiles with very tapered lips That grip his bulging cheeks. Reflecting the sun from a… Continue reading LEMON
by Terence Patrick Hughes Tom Tucker said he saw a dead body but when we got there it was gone. I had been minding my business that early evening outside of the house, transistor radio set against the top riser of the front steps, barely catching the signal of the Red Sox game with enough… Continue reading Tom Tucker’s Dead Body
by Johnny T. Chaos what else but chaos spinning around my head in the back of the chapel of the school where she pulled me not her first kiss but mine her pulling me alone by the hand my first time holding hands even the soft fingers stuck between mine soft and wet and warm… Continue reading The Creation
by Olaf Kroneman 1967 was a bad year to be a hospital intern. My first rotation was unlucky. I was assigned to surgery during Detroit’s 1967 riot. The suffering, panic, and blood overflowed. Forty-three people died. Most of them came through our emergency room, and those that made it went to surgery. Those that didn’t… Continue reading The Elephant and the Dove
by Trisha Chen i tuck myself into a quiet-corner cookie cutter shape of a person, i ignore the bumps, the creaks, the peaks, the valleys, i shine a flashlight at my own pupils in the mirror hoping to see into the dark pitfall, i feel saltwater pushing at my waterline dam. i push against the… Continue reading bitter and better are one vowel apart
by Derek R. Smith Nothing hits harder Than cold waves on rocky beaches Except maybe a poet who’s Inspired by this whole well-trod Metaphorical scene where Ocean kisses land. Then when the poet spots A single clear blueish chunk of Beach glass underfoot Amongst the gray rocks It all appears, the movie montage, How an… Continue reading Breaking
by Colleen Markley Clarice wasn’t sure which was odder: that she was becoming invisible or that her husband hadn’t noticed. “I must be overtired,” she remarked to John, examining the skillet she was scrubbing through an opening in the back of her hand. Was this glaucoma? She glanced up from the suds to the window… Continue reading Vanishing Act
by Deirdre Hickey When I was only eleven you called me Aphrodite, sticking your finger into my hips, when my body first began to look a little more like yours. Already you told me I had what you wanted, a body ripe like a hummingbird, smooth fruit of sliced peach, bones dripping with sweet wine,… Continue reading They Long to Be (Close to You)
by Zachary Hodges the lilac of his touch, ever-cream skin glistening as we bask in the light of a newly dawned era. the lives we’ve lived through the men of the past, loving strangers not safe for the average lambda lover. and the black and white photo rolls, the delicacy in their hand holds, how… Continue reading pink triangles
by Melissa Ridley Elmes There’s a chill in the air, that specific, cool undercurrent in the light autumn wind that heralds the changing of the seasons. Though the trees have only just begun their annual parade of fiery colors, the sense of quiet ending that comes with the final leaf tippling from the final branch,… Continue reading October Mourning
Ignatian Literary Magazine 