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spring 2023
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Volume 37, Issue 2 Spring 2023
Editors Editors-in-Chief Jenna Massey Malvika Shrimali Art Editor Miranda Yañez Poetry Editors Shawna Alston Paige Foltz Prose Editor Jack Gillespie Publicity Editor Lulu Griffin Digitization Editor Juliana Santry Thank you so much to everyone who made this a fantastic semester, including the following, who helped assemble the magazine! Jess Lain Ash Pyle Lauren Mullaney Andre Adams Logan Mischke
Clare Gifford Lena Smith Crystal Wang Sydney Shoulders
Cover Art
You Could Could Fry An Egg Kelley Wang see the full work on page 49
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Contents in which i spend too much time reading from the richard siken bot twitter account Two of Cups Meri Jaan (my love) Contigo THE BEDE ROLL Hidden Treasure Fragile Kafka in and out of love RESURRECTION Puerto Rico 6 A Taste of Home Eye of the Storm Standing on the Pier at College Landing Park in Williamsburg, Virginia March (in the woods far away from you) Rainforest, Yunque National Park 1 closure is a myth Recreation of a Lautrec And Time Drags Us On together//friendship Cow Farm American Vivaldi my chai with roses Our Place in God’s Kingdom Post-Modernist Frat Bro with Cool Socks Olive, Alive Sunnyboy NDA That One Goodbye Black Man Through the Vestibule Portuguese Man O’ War or Right After It Was Over Dream of a Deity Lovers Musubi Beatrice Ophelia Photograph of Emma Overhang The Flower-Viewing Garden Modern Monet The Trees Have Lost Their Leaves Again Portrait No. 1 Weekday in the City You Could Fry An Egg Oh Momma February (in the old house) Contributor’s Notes Editors’ Note
4
Van Monday
5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14-15 16 17
Shawna Alston Malvika Shrimali Charlotte Daum Ellie Parson Melanie (Mel) Pineda-Flores Charlotte Daum Miranda Yañez Ellie Parson Alisa Yang Ashley Huang Selah Ball Jade Fountain
18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42-43 44 45-46 47 48 49 50-51 52 54-55 56
Will Florentino Alisa Yang Malvika Shrimali Andre Adams Crystal Wang Ellie Ferrell Anna Longley Ella Nguyen Beth Anne Dell Jess Lain Pelumi Sholagbade Charlotte Daum Miranda Yañez Kelley Wang Shawna Alston Jacob Brown Jenna Massey Charlotte Daum Anna Longley Andre Adams Ava Wladar Ava Wladar Jenna Massey Seth Novak Mateus Dutra Andre Adams Mariah Salazar-Solorzano Kelley Wang Will Florentino Kelley Wang Julia Mathas Will Florentino
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in which i spend too much time reading from the richard siken bot twitter account so we go to the mountains. roads wind, smoke drifts up the hillside, we trace each other in our peripheral vision, and you thank me. i don’t know what for. when you ask me to play a song, i play it. and now, when it rings out, i think about premonitions. in my dreams you are a vulture. in my dreams you are there, asking me questions i can’t answer. in my dreams, we find a snake and run. as fast as we can, we run away from everything. so we go to the mountains. the smoke fills my lungs. 4 hours from home, a million miles away. there’s a party on a porch that doesn’t exist. you are illuminated in the moonlight, you’re not quite dancing. i’m not quite breathing. what am i supposed to do with my hands? someone tells us to leave, someone tells us there is too much light. we’re running, again, to the water this time. why won’t you push me under? — Van Monday
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Two of Cups my cheeks are warm with a ruddy sensibility i smile deep you flourish because of it. we are flourishing because of it you are glowing i forget what it feels like to frown time obeys us we build sandcastles in each other’s arms moats full of butterfly wings this space here from elbow to elbow belongs to us everything from one end of the horizon to the next belongs to us — Shawna Alston
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Meri Jaan (my love) baby, take these kisses and the sun when i’m laying down, belly up in the gardens. suncatchers and windchimes spread the same gospel: you, infinite universe, meet matter and bring an irradiance about your nine month room. baby, take these truths like rain seeping into your skin. catch them in your pocket and believe in april. find me amongst the droplets rich with their certain truths, true by virtue of being so infinite and lovely. think of me in irises and rebirth. baby, take my heart for its everything power to unfurl fists. take stars between your palms that radiate in youlight. keep warm them infinitely. i’ll tell you as much: your big three are love, love, love. stories govern movement and ancestral maps. ask and follow: you are you are me coming home. — Malvika Shrimali
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Charlotte Daum
Contigo
Gouache and Paint Pen
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THE BEDE ROLL the names of holy fools are thrown into orbit around several dozens of dusty heads greasy in the eye and oily in the mouth at the sound of stiff recognition once again dragged behind by shadows to the end of a bleached paper nave there, everyone wades in dizzy silence like memorial scabs plastered over the moon they steal light from the ichor chandeliers, color from the skinny watercolor panes stones from the altar, spirit from the stole ironed white and gold under the bede roll — Ellie Parson
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Melanie (Mel) Pineda-Flores
Hidden Treasure
Oil Pastel and Acrylic
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Charlotte Daum
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Fragile
Gouache and Colored Pencil
Kafka in and out of love by Miranda Yañez
27 February. Prague. Black coffee and typical delusion for breakfast. Pining for you. An orange just to feel something. The bitter pith sours my desire to eat any more. I shall grow weak and starve before I hunger for anything but you. 28 February. Re-reading Dickens. Self-isolation hands me weary comfort. There is no place like inside my head. Wine at Voltaire today. Brief hope that the Merlot should poison me but I decided I would rather die writing. It’s been months since I’ve lusted for someone who offers any respite from my wicked ideations. We should make love again before this kernel of apathy (resting in the crook of my neck) remembers to explode over my body. 29 February. Every day I wake up to discover that time has decided to extended herself further and drag me along with it. I have lived but I’m not sure you have. I am supposed to leave for Berlin this morning but I should much rather resign myself to the wretched knife of love that lies dormant within me, awakened only by staring ceaselessly into your eyes. 31 February. Here again. My phlegm for life sickens me more each hour that I am without you. The siren warmth of the brothel was enticing under the full moon last night. There is a semi-attractive woman sitting next to me. Tall, protruding clavicles. Peering into her diary over silver-rimmed glasses, not writing anything. She might have become aware that I am staring at her. I am bloated with shame. 34 February. Train to Berlin. Afraid I am unable to love you and perhaps unable to love anyone, at all. Whatever you feel for me is most likely fiction, and this brief intersection of our lives, though sensorially pleasurable, should probably end.
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RESURRECTION the thin crackling of dry seaweed my bare legs singing a sore tune on the shoreline to the wake of a passing storm she is relieved poured from a pot and scattered in a salty wind, sinking through a pale grain and grit all the way to the center of the Earth and back in the juniper green stem of a cattail or in an oily saltwater pearl, strung heavily on the neck of a little girl pithy waves push and pull wooden thoughts out past the horizon while it’s still high tide out on an ocean as cold as it is large and I remember she said everyday the sun will sanctify the sky to welcome young angels born in the nighttime from north to south
from east to west — Ellie Parson
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Alisa Yang
Puerto Rico 6
Photography
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A Taste of Home by Ashley Huang
My dad once told me, “The greatest regret in my life is coming to the US.” He spoke while tossing frozen chunks of fruit and tapping his secret ingredient, a dollop of avocado, into a blender. When he handed me a chilled cup of the creamy smoothie, I savored my first mouthful and thought back to our summer trip to Taiwan, when the two of us visited a building that housed a family I had only ever heard stories of. It was my dad’s childhood home – an unremarkable hole in the wall tucked between apartments that groaned with age. Raindrops splattered onto the hot asphalt where we stood, its vapor acidifying the scent of Taipei’s smog and burning my nose. My dad held up his phone and nudged me to stand under the tropical canopy blanketing the house, where it was dry. My seventeen-year-old self rolled my eyes and walked over, forcing a smile for his photo. Then, I heard a voice. “Nǐ men shì shéi?” Who are you two? I turned. Standing at the doorway was the house’s current inhabitant with his eyebrow raised. My dad replied, “I’m visiting my childhood home for the first time since leaving for America.” Before we knew it, we were whisked inside, and the other occupants of the house invited us onto comfy seats, offering us hot water. As the Taiwanese hosts surrounded us with smiles and crinkled eyes, I struggled to comprehend the Taipei dialect that soon infused the air around me. Through the chatter, my dad exchanged stories of childhood street vendors who sold icy drinks on sweltering summers, and the pavement outside his school that he rubbed his palms on until calluses formed, to numb the sting of his teacher’s ruler. After thirty years of cultural and language barriers starving him of ever feeling like he belonged, I saw my dad’s frown lines finally soften. Encased in the comforting memories of his past, it seemed like he was finally home. The next day, with the nostalgic warmth of his childhood home still fresh, I followed my dad as he made a beeline for Taiwan’s Army Academy.
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I wiped beads of sweat off my forehead and squinted my eyes, trying to decipher the proud golden Chinese characters: Lù jūn xué xiào, that hung over the gate and concrete wall that separated the city from the military base. My dad took a photo and said, “The gate looks just how I remember.” I realized we were standing in the same backdrop of a framed photo that sat by my dad’s home computer: a photo of his twenty-year-old self wearing his lieutenant’s uniform. Hearing our noise, two guards appeared from inside and probed us. My dad boasted, “I served as an officer here, and used to command soldiers like you.” He took a proud step towards the gate, and asked, “Can I come inside?” The guards stood motionless and silent, glancing sideways at each other. Hearing no response, my dad repeated his request, and added, “You know you used to salute me, right?” The guards just shook their heads and marched off. My dad, not thinking much of it, shrugged and asked me to take his photo outside the gate. I held my phone up. Through the screen, the guards’ backs shrunk to dots, and the gray walls towered over my dad’s helpless figure: an agonizing separation between him and the proudest fragment of his past. Upon hearing the slurp of my dad finishing his smoothie, I transported myself back home to the kitchen. He licked his straw and smiled, saying, “This is why I want to go back to Taiwan. I want to spend my life selling homemade smoothies as a street vendor.” I didn’t respond. Stabbing my straw into a lone piece of mango in my cup, the image of the apathetic guards brushing my dad aside seared into my mind like hot iron. I started to wonder if he is only chasing an illusion: the illusion of a life lived by a man who never existed — a fragile life, one planted by the past, nourished by nostalgia, with which its innocent existence is threatened by reality’s trampling.
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Selah Ball
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Eye of the Storm
Photography
Standing on the Pier at College Landing Park in Williamsburg, Virginia Under a grey wool throw of sky, I see the sun asleep by a hoary lake. Everything is mute and the Browning stems sprout from surfaces of flat water, taking heed to deep winds. Mourning doves of January’s winter walk about the wooded dock or sit with their feathers the same color of still coming clouds; the whitegold of day. I stand with missing sod underneath my bare feet, wet dirt tugging on my toes; My life is pointless. — Jade Fountain
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Rainforest, Photography Yunque National Park 1
Alisa Yang
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March (in the woods far away from you) By Will Florentino The skin on my knee flakes in striations like the bark of sycamores: Four in a row on roadside unleafed despite the spring. Sun behind the mountains so the trees can’t sink into the yellow basket of the season until mid-April. Roots deeper still, enough to assuage the bleeding, all going home to the water. Guitar in the backseat like a heart in remission. I know, I’ve been cowardly again, blood gone cold down my pant leg, but you know. John Denver softly over the radio, Colorado croon bottling up the rain for the journey over the mountains and the deep trees. I sleep with my cheek against the frozen glass knowing we will have something to drink. You there, in the rests of his voice, even when you are not. We walk this flat world, waking. Every footfall on the riprap sends into the wind a note no one has ever played. Every night of spring, I reside in the dark ring around the fire where snowflakes come to be quenched in smoke. In the evening with the guitar in my lap I feel myself fill into my shoes. You sing and thus become a lighthouse. I am set ablaze in our knowing: to love, as to sing, is to bestow meaning. With every chord I begin to sound out a name for you. When I return, I will lay at your side as you dress my wounds, kiss my forehead. You will call me by a name that resonates like a song I haven’t written. The guitar, battered from the snow, stripped like sycamore bark, full of warmth, right where we left it.
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closure is a myth i’m sure i’m written into your walls and revealed in candlelight to a face that is long and kind. like moth to flame and me to you, when your hand was on my stomach. fingertips twist thoughts through soft skin, the shape of your name spells out mine. this is the natural, observable phenomenon of desirable and desirer. we are a case study of the vampire squid and its prey. beware of when you are no longer the light-bearer. i will peel back wallpaper like terror for you: fever dream pink hair dye tear stains. something gives and the last of it is scrubbed away. memories bubble up empty and vicious when mirrored back to me. — Malvika Shrimali
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Andre Adams
Recreation of a Lautrec
Wax Pastel
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And Time Drags Us On I’m catching up, I think, On your 22 For I’ll be 20 soon, To your never 25 And I’m ticking off marks To stamp my achievements — And yes, I’m catching up soon. I breathed each step on you tombstone And think I’ve stolen something from you. But that doesn’t really compare; My, our, baby sister, She cried when you left home, Ticks off marks too. And she’ll be catching up soon. For she’ll be 18 soon To your never 25. And I’ll take her voting For the first time, And move her out, then in, And think. Yes, We’re catching up.
— Crystal Wang
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together//friendship we lay round the coffee table making braids with our bodies a foot on the armchair, a leg in my lap empty wine glasses and mugs the presence of this morning the memory of last night the solidarity of closeness a force of easy love and we gather in a messy communion i sing bon iver in the shower a harmony enters from the living room we share cigarettes, books and ideas the kitchen counter is our altar we sacrifice our walls pour another glass and pray it will always be this simple we hold each other mourn together light a candle and laugh until our ribs are soft finding refuge in congregation authenticity and love — Ellie Ferrell
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Anna Longley
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Cow Farm
Ink
American Vivaldi The groundhog was wrong frost abated easily at slightest sunbeam. Festival food clutched in opposable hands of a masked little man. Apples ripened red ferment on the orchard floor for worm’s sloppy joy. Horizontal sleet cutting at a doe’s dark eyes she must bow her head. — Ella Nguyen
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my chai with roses i gossip with the willow tree the rain pours as i sip my tea i pester mags, she tries to read i trace the ship-lapped boards with ease my chai with roses, feed the breeze splinter scars and rumors weaved ‘blowing dune grass melodies’ drifts on flakes to dust my tea chai with roses, shhh, i cede blistered, sun-scaled, one-two-three Virginia snow once washed in streams sits static in each wrinkled crease i crinkle to fit in these sleeves and pull a cracker, crunch with glee dispense whisper aperitifs my chai with roses, greenly sweet malingers in the ice and speak and satiated guests retreat to mount the day’s retracting stead my papercuts, now-golden, sting the willow beckons distantly the fingers whip me to my feet with silence on my tongue i leave — Beth Anne Dell
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Our Place in God’s Kingdom The mallards were unabashedly noisy before I arrived. They splashed about in their hazel water, Reveling in the way the sun lit their wings; They basked in their own fluorescence. But when the trees gave birth to my harsh body, And announced my presence to God’s kingdom, The spirit of the mallards ceased to exist completely. The message was clear: I was not welcome in their celebration of life Yet I wonder… If I were to baptize myself in that pond’s hazel water— That is, unmistakably brown water, but speckled here and there with green, And tinted tastefully with gold— Yes I wonder, If I were to sanctify my soul in their brackish pool, Would the mallards forgive me for my humanity? — Jess Lain
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Post-Modernist Frat Bro with Cool Socks I’m a slogan ass bitch, self-interest slut, riding the stocks with my pants down low looking for an echo, love? A funhouse mirror, laid synapses, Modelesque, apple cored, emptied out on algorithm, a neon city on ice, cake between the lids. I’m pleased to state I don’t need a BBL. I’m ever so pleased, ticked pink, blanched white wherever the rope binds, under the leer of a cherry-eyed sunset, ripe as a Bloody Mary burger. Fresh to fucking death. — Pelumi Sholagbade
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Charlotte Daum
Olive, Alive
Oil
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Sunnyboy From under the eiderdown in the tall grey mountains, we awaken to stir honey into hot licorice tea. In our rooms, I read, you meditate, blanketed in the woolly grief of midwinter. Now, I dropper rosemary oil into my hair and think of then— how April snowmelt turned our hands bone cold as we scavenged for rocks. These subtle acts of self care are futile. Because though I wish to be you, Sunnyboy, your wrists inked with evergreens for your Old Man, tired Spring, as always, rises from her quiet bed, and I (as always) must return home. — Miranda Yañez
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Kelley Wang
NDA
Charcoal
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That One Goodbye Black Man pushed in and pressed down like the lip of a soap dispenser you make me feel like uggs in the fucking rain. ripped up and spread all over like waist beads after a rough patch; sugar and starch and carbs and so much fucking regret. i spent too much time believing in your ability to create new life in me that i forgot you’d become some jaunty, pants-down loser to impress light-skin bitches. i built you and you pissed on all of my hard work fuck you. bastard. — Shawna Alston
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Through the Vestibule The summer storms crack their wrath Whipping the townies and big fish, Beating the faded paved ways that crisscross collide, The mute world grays With old, Cavity-wrought teeth jutting into the sky– Cockroach inns, rat restaurants, prehistoric suburban huts But towering through the rough steel-wool, Red mud piled up up up– Carved basic-intricate, Some fake Victorian relic Pretending to matter, to mean something; The ghost of a man; And in this cloth of nothing They dissipate, Clinging to the earth, Its talons digging deep into all it can reach. — Jacob Brown
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Portuguese Man O`’ War or Right After It Was Over The day I leave him: hundreds sprawled across the beach; gorgeous, their iridescent massacre of biblical proportions. The kinds of little deaths I’d share with him. Barefoot, I sidle through the killing field, inspecting purpling bodies with the end of a sea-strewn stick. Some still pulse like they’ll outlast fate. They have not heard they are dead yet, these opalescent anomalies, these beached blue cruisers. What they know is what they’ve left behind. Alone in my witnessing, I raise my gaze to the horizon. The sky catches in my throat. Betrayed, I turn my back to it. Lower my body into the surf. — Jenna Massey
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Charlotte Daum
Dream of a Deity
Gouache, Colored Pencil, and Paint Pen
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Anna Longley
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Lovers
Ink
Andre Adams
Musubi
Oil Pastel
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Ava Wladar
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Beatrice
Graphite and Gouache
Ava Wladar
Ophelia
Gouache
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Photograph of Emma It was early Sunday. Bitter cold, morning pressing gently through the shades. And you were there, and not yet dead. When you opened the curtains sunlight ran its hands across your mouth. — Jenna Massey
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Seth Novak
Overhang
Photography
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The Flower-Viewing Garden By Mateus Dutra A wooden viewing platform extended over the dry bed of a creek. It was cordoned off by a rope that had been there for so long that it had grown threadbare in certain places. No one was in a hurry to replace it; leaves covered the platform from end to end, and the wood had gotten quite rotten. No one was sneaking in. It was called the flower-viewing garden, but it’s actually none of those things. From its lofty vantage point, five or six feet above the creek bed, a person could view mostly rot. Rotting leaves, rotting wood, even rotting carcasses – although those were rarer. Whatever the intention of whoever constructed the platform, it was clear that it wasn’t fulfilling it. In fact, it served no discernible function at all, save as another place that needed caring and wasn’t getting it. So at night someone came and decided to cross the ropes and sweep all the leaves down into the creek bed. It wasn’t cold or rainy, and although the moon wasn’t full, the night couldn’t be called dark, either. He swept the leaves down with an old broom, going about it haphazardly, without any hard method, and likely taking much longer because of it. When he was done he looked around the platform and felt some mild satisfaction. Walking home with the broom over his shoulder, he whistled with no tune in mind. He saw some leaves had fallen on the platform when he walked past it on the following day, but he still possessed that feeling of satisfaction. The clutter on the floor was still significantly diminished compared to yesterday, and sunlight, shining off some of the newly visible wood, altered the atmosphere of the surroundings quite pleasantly. People could be observed looking around for a second or two as they passed. Feeling something but not quite seeing it. If they stopped they might’ve been able to see what it was that captivated them. Some even did. Since it was autumn, the leaves were falling constantly, so he decided to sweep them every third night. Every single night would’ve been better, but he wanted to recreate the feeling of first seeing the cleared-out floor. Even if in a lesser variety. One day, towards the second third of the season, when the orange and yellow leaves were particularly striking in the late afternoon sun, he was admiring the view of the platform from behind the rope when he overheard a nearby conversation. Why was this area roped off ? Why didn’t we use it? and so on. He didn’t pay it much mind at the time, but some days later, when he made his next night trip, he noticed the rope was gone and the platform was already clean. The wood even looked polished. He stood there with the broom in his hand. The moonlight reflecting from the
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gleaming wood burrowed into his eyes. He had a faint headache while walking back. The following day, he noticed men in hard hats walking around the platform. He thought about approaching them but changed his mind and decided to walk past them. The day after that, he noticed the guardrails were gone and that a pickup truck with construction supplies in its bed was idling nearby. The black smoke from the exhaust pipe was clearly visible in the cold morning air. He avoided the platform entirely the next day. When he next walked past it, the wood had been replaced by a newer and more durable-looking variety, and there were people on it. Some chairs had been placed here and there, as well as some small, close-to-the-ground tables. The weather was unseasonably warm and the sky was a cloudless, deep blue. Everyone was enjoying one of the final good days before the cold would force everyone back inside. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to say that some of the general good spirits were also caused by the platform itself. He picked his way through the people and leaned on the thick new guardrails, placing the underside of his left forearm flat on top and putting the right arm over the left. Looking at the view in front of him, he noticed how the trees were mostly bare now. What little leaves remained were either dead or dying. No more need for sweeping. But that night he decided to come anyway. Without the broom, he felt naked, but the night was beautiful; the moon was full and plenty of stars were still visible. As he neared the platform he became aware of more light than usual and quickly discovered why. Two black lamp posts on either side of the platform were turned on, and their white light illuminated its entire length. They couldn’t have been put in place this afternoon, could they? Or had it been done earlier and he had missed it entirely among all the new additions? He stood behind where the rope would’ve been. The artificial light was bright enough that only by walking all the way to the guardrail could you see what lay beyond the platform. He noticed three people sitting on some of the new chairs, chatting quietly and laughing every now and then. He walked home without looking back.
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Andre Adams
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Modern Monet
Oil Pastel
The Trees Have Lost Their Leaves Again The trees have lost their leaves again. Stripped of beauty and arms extended as I was left time and time again. In my dorm, I unpack nostalgia for the tears I left at the mouth of a man-made lake. I walk on hidden paths several towns over and the sinking feeling still finds me. On the first cold day the air feels so familiar that I check the calendar, but it’s not any tragedy’s Anniversary. The priest makes a promise at the pulpit; He won’t abandon you. A bead forms and rolls down past my cheek to my locked jaw.
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The wind is loud, and I wonder if it is screaming or pleading. The skin on my nose is scarlet and my hands tremble their way to the heater after unraveling the scarf that hides the ugly thing I wish would scar over. This wound, an exhibitionist, only aches and bleeds for others, but when I undress it reeks of abandonment. The branches are bare and the fruit is mush beneath the brittle leaves scattered miles from where they grew. The wind is violent and the cracks in the soil have widened, but in a few months the birds will build nests for their babies once again. — Mariah Salazar-Solorzano
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Kelley Wang
Portrait No. 1
Oil
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Weekday in the City Washing my face like it’s the first violence I can commit in the morning with the leftover wrens. Hold the mirror steady. I will myself, today, not to speak with silence’s tongue, forked and biblical, bitter like papercuts below my teeth. I chop onions, tearless. Knife strikes straight through to the bone as the radio news too faint for ears seeps skin-deep to wake my blood. What belongs to me: this vernal rain singing behind the periphery of clouds. This egg, hard in my palm claimed, uncracked, by the foxes. This hurry into the petrichor rising through subway grates. — Will Florentino
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Kelley Wang
You Could Fry An Egg
Monotype Print
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Oh Momma Oh Momma, your Tommy doesn’t want to play anymore, I’ve been listening to whizz-bangs and taking turns with the wind up for too long and now they say the big show’s starting tomorrow. I know Jerry and Fritz are coming to get me. Oh Momma, most of my friends have already gone west with the other zig-zagging cowboys but I’ve got cold feet from playing on the duckboards. Sammy says the games are all spike-bozzled but he hasn’t been playing as long as I have. Oh Momma, I’m afraid I’ll conk out before I can make it all the way home to you. I’m tired of digging with my piggy stick and Playing hide and seek in the nests and pillboxes. They say I’ve got the cooties now, it’s not fair— Oh Momma, tell Uncle Sam to bring me home. — Julia Mathas
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WWI Slang Dictionary (In Order): Tommy: Term for a generic British soldier Whizz-Bang: a type of artillery named for the sound it makes when shot. Famous for its deadliness The Wind Up: term for fear, or having momentary extreme fear or weakness that borders on debilitating. Not as bad as shell shock The Big Show: the Meuse-Argonne offensive (one of the most successful and bloody offensives in WWI, the last of the war. A British soldier fighting in this would have been fighting as long as four years) Jerry: nickname for a German soldier/Germany Fritz: nickname for a German soldier/Germany Gone West: died Zig-Zagging: term for a drunk person Cold Feet: discouraged also a reference to trench foot, where constant cold and moisture from trenches resulted in gangrene and infections in the feet of soldiers Duck Boards: thin planks which covered large mud pits in the trenches. Should a soldier fall into one likely he would be sucked down and drowned. Sammy: term for American troops, reference to Uncle Sam Spike-Bozzled: destroyed, messed up, broken to the point of zero functionality Conk Out: Die Piggy Stick: entrenchment tool, used by soldiers to dig or repair trenches Nests: machine gun nests were slightly raised heavily protected area where machine guns would be positioned along the trench line to defend against attack Pillbox: a crude concrete above ground defensive position usually located along trench lines with small holes where defenders can fire and take cover Cooties: reference to lice or other vermin which basically infested soldiers on the front lines Uncle Sam: reference to the US, in this case more to do with the US ending the war and allowing the soldier to go home as the soldier is technically British
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February (in the old house) The door swings round again with you in the crease running so fast I’m afraid you’ll trample your own memory to death, but not yet. Not with the walls still damp from the green smell of my smile in your hair after an hour in the dark spring rain. Not with your laugh still slipping, fish-skinned, down doorframes and fenceposts to repaint them your new favorite color. It used to be mine, too. I knew the balms for every leaky faucet and chipped tile, the weeps and whirs of old pipes laden with yawning balls of soot. I knew songs for every season, the names of each black cat in your path. How hands atop hands sketched soft edges even as dishwater wore grooves into us. What I would give to call once more to you, “ the tap’s run dry, let’s go to bed” and wake the neighbors with how loud we could laugh each other to sleep. — Will Florentino
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Contributors’ Alisa Yang is a sophomore at W&M who loves nature, traveling, and many different types of Art. Andre Adams is a Hawaiian-Black student (Junior) at William & Mary. He specializes in oil pastel and wax pastel and his style is abstract inspired by Hawaiian petroglyphs and German Expressionism. Anna Longley is a freshman at William & Mary intending to major in Studio Art. She has been drawing since she was a kid and her preferred medium is ink. Ashley Huang is a rising senior biology major. Her favorite writing genre is creative nonfiction. Charlotte Daum is a sophomore studying English and Marketing. Her work is an exploration of color and spirit — she seeks to visually represent her poetic world of people and place. Ella Jo Nguyen (‘24) is a Theatre and English Major, with a focus on Shakespeare and drama. Ellie Ferrell is a rising senior at the College. Words have always been her path of least resistance and her favorite way to stay curious. Ellie Parson grew up in Bronxville, New York and will soon be graduating with a BA in English Language and Literature in August of 2023. Jacob Brown ‘26 is a History & English major. A native Texan, he loves poetry, knitting, and leisurely walks. Jade Fountain is a junior majoring in English and Secondary Education whose passion is to share the beauty of literature with younger generations. Jenna Massey loves being Co-Editor-in-Chief of The Gallery. Kelley Wang is a senior double majoring in Computer Science and Art and Art History with a concentration in Studio Art at William & Mary. As an artist, they are fascinated with personhood and like to explore the idea of self through themes of relationships -- intrapersonally, interpersonally, and spatially. In the future as an artist, they hope their practice can better inform their own identity – open to the feeling it may not necessarily lead to a grand reveal.
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Notes Malvika Shrimali is often found gazing lovingly at the world around them and is proud to be the co-Editor-in-Chief of The Gallery. Mel Pineda-Flores (They/Them) is a Hispanic, bisexual, gender-queer, and polyamorous artist. They use their art to express their unique experiences in the world. They are a GSWS major, Sociology minor, class ‘24. Pelumi Sholagbade is an English major and Creative Writing minor at the College. Previously, they have been published in Blue Marble Review, Rue Scribe, Rookie Magazine, and William & Mary’s LIPS. She is a big fan of R&B, the color pink, and thinking too much about astrology. Selah Ball (Class of 2025) is a self-proclaimed artist that grew up with a passion for photography. She began her career armed with only a digital camera and using Barbies as her models. Shawna Alston is afraid of what her life would be like without Gallery. That’s why she keeps submitting almost indecipherable poetry. Van Monday is probably doomscrolling (B.A. American Studies/Film and Media Studies ’24) Will Florentino ‘24 once crashed his high school’s email servers and has yet to do anything of note since.
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Editors’ Note Dear Reader, Welcome to the Spring 2023 issue of The Gallery! For days, we have struggled to articulate exactly what this magazine means to us. We’ll start by saying this: We love The Gallery. We are so proud of the continued dedication of our Staff and the greater Gallery community. This has been a marvelous first year of being Editors-in-Chief— a year of growth, joy, and learning. We’ve made tremendous strides in membership and engagement, and have enjoyed reviewing almost 200 submissions over the course of the Spring semester. We are excited to witness how the club continues to grow over the remainder of our tenure. We recently reviewed archived issues of The Gallery, which date back to the 1980s. It is surreal to consider the scale of all who came before us and all who will follow. We are grateful to make this tiny – yet significant – mark in Gallery history. If you come to cherish even one piece from this issue, it will have made the long hours in the basement of Swem Library worth it. The layout of InDesign has been burned into our eyelids, but we wouldn’t have it any other way. We are so impressed and inspired by the artists represented in this issue. Thank you for trusting us with your art and writing, and we can’t wait to read your submissions in the fall! With love, — Jenna Massey and Malvika Shrimali Co-Editors-in-Chief
Colophon
The Gallery Volume 37 Issue 2 was produced by the student staff at the College of William & Mary and published by Carter Printing Co. in Richmond, Virginia. Submissions are accepted anonymously through a staff vote. The magazine was designed using Adobe Indesign CC and Adobe Photoshop CC. The magazine’s 56, 6x9 pages are set in Garamond. The titles of all the pieces are Derivia. The text on the cover is set in Garamond.
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