University of San Francisco's Student-Run Literary Magazine
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 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 Casey McConahay “WHEN AM I GONNA LOSE YOU” - LOCAL NATIVES It was during the pandemic—during the early weeks when everything felt uncertain—and when we sat on your porch together, you told me about the boxes you were disinfecting and about how your sister, who was worried about you, would be upset that we… Continue reading Mixtape
by Cynthia J. Roman Cabrera I wish I understood my mother’s mystery. I feel the sting like a bang on my funny bone when people share positive memories of their mothers. I am envious of people who know their mothers. I know my mother by association. We are kinfolk, but not chosen folk. I would… Continue reading Rootlessness
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 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 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 Steve Petkus Emboldened by the nipper of ginthat was his only supperin the rental car between viewings,the dead man’s son returnstwenty minutes late and tripson the carpet, knocks a lampfrom the table nearest the casket.“Damn it,” he spits, and a steely hushfalls on those gathered for the day’sfinal session. In diminished lightthe son grimaces,… Continue reading Hapless
Ignatian Literary Magazine 