University of San Francisco's Student-Run Literary Magazine
by Molly Seale The songs I learned first were church songs. The others—Itsy Bitsy Spider, Row, Row Row Your Boat, Happy Wanderer— came later. But the songs I learned from the Methodist Hymnal, before I could even read from the Methodist Hymnal, came to me earlier: another part of learning words and an understanding that… Continue reading Singing With My Father
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 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 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 Heikki Huotari The anthem is a function of the feedback, Jimi Hendrix, may your serenade goout untamed. You may have won a hundred years a hundred years ago. Therepartee has been upgraded, that's what they say. Put the entities together in aroom and they'll sing kumbaya in unison. The power outage was the doing… Continue reading Everything Except The Carbon Sink II
by Ilma Qureshi fireflies can you catch a poem like a firefly?flickering through nettles andrising oak trees,does a poem ever lay still? does wisdomlike ripe plumsfall from branches or does one make senseby drawing watercasket after casketfrom a swollen well? just when you think of life as a beautiful orchidfull of oranges and unknown wonder,your… Continue reading fireflies
by JC Alfier From the river that received his ashes like alms,my father stands at his workbench, tinkers in the service of the lesser angels now,heaven acceding his need for a 40-watt bulb cornered away from the radiant surge of Shekinah glory.Departed souls about him will get used to the dimness, study him putzing about… Continue reading Tradesman
Ignatian Literary Magazine 