Circus Spring 2017 by Amherst Circus

Circus

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Editors-in-Chief Shreeansh Agrawal ‘19, Jae Hyun Ha ‘19 Art Managing Editors: Emily Hong ‘20, Caroline Shim ‘20 Assistant Editor: Sahara Ndiaye ‘20, Layout Managing Editor: Dorit Song ‘19 Poetry Managing Editors: Aly Levinson ‘19, Gwyneth Lewis ‘20 Assistant Editor: Zehra Madhavan ‘20 Prose Managing Editors: Emma Wilfert ‘19, Emily Ma ‘20 Assistant Editors: Kathleen Isenneger ‘20, Hapshiba Kwon ‘20, Nam Nguyen ‘20

Cover art: Emily Hong ‘20 The aim of Circus is to represent the most outstanding and diverse creative talent that students from the five colleges have to offer. The Circus editors truly enjoyed reading and evaluation each and every submission, and hope that you continue to help us achieve our mission by submitting your best works to circus@amherst.edu.

letter from the editors First of all, an apology is in order. We did not publish a Fall 2016 issue due to various complications, and we have decided that this was a temporary hiccup in an otherwise consistent commitment to showcasing the rich literary and artistic products of the five colleges. We have combined the submissions from Fall 2016 and Spring 2017 to create an annual issue, and we hope that you will love what we have to show! We believe that many of the pieces in this issue were created and submitted in the context of massive changes in the self-understanding of American social and political life. The imposing turbulence of the world prompts a feeling of loss and disorientation. Looking around, finding little solace in the words of others, one yearns to revel in a more adolescent existence. Perhaps these turmoils are why many of this semesterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s literary and artistic works examine concepts such as loss, memory, and the future. We as editors witnessed such tensions surfacing continually in both selected and unselected submissions which

only points to the fact that art and literature have the ability to touch on and communicate emotions and reactions that are beyond the realm of objective observation. That being said, there are also pieces in this edition that are not as much an excavation of fear, but a celebration of life. In a vivid tone and with a liberating sense of levity, these pieces capture experiences and situations ranging from the whimsical to the revelatory, and we couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t help but smile to ourselves after having looked at them. We have a myriad of people to thank for making this issue possible. The generous funding provided by the AAS, the support of professors and coordinators in the English and art departments, the love given to us by our readers, and the contribution of the writers and artists submitting their work, all help us become the the magazine that we are. Lastly, we want to thank Ricky Choi and Amber Boykins, the editors-in-chief before us, for finding a way to help us even when they were steeped in their own work. We thank you all! Shreeansh Agrawal and Jae Hyun Ha

CONTENTS 1

THE JEWISH GIRL / MIRIAM DE LA R IVA OVALLE ‘18

(SEE)SENSE / ALY LEVINSON ‘19

WEEPING MAN / SARAH WISHLOFF ‘19

INHERITANCE / RACHEL RAVELLI ’17 [UMASS AMHERST]

SUSPENDED / SARAH WISHLOFF ‘19

BROOKLYN / LEAH WOODBRIDGE ‘20

MEASURED WITH COFFEE SPOONS / SARAH WISHLOFF ‘19

UN TITLED / PAULINA SONG ‘19

DOMESTIC TRINITY: FATHER, SON, HOLY SPIRIT / LORELEI DIETZ ‘20

MISS AMERICA GOES BACK IN TIME / GRETA WILENSKY ‘20 [UMASS AMHERST]

GOLDILOCKS / KRISTEN RILEY ‘19

ONE OF US / AUTUMN GUNTOR ‘19 [UMASS AMHERST]

OLIVES / SOPHIA LIAO ‘20

BALLOONS IN A FIELD, A GAME / LOLA FADULU ‘17

COMING TO TERMS / MIKAYLA GORDON WEXLER ‘19

UN TITLED / SOON YOUNG SHIMIZU ‘20

MILK / JINJIN XU ‘17

WHITE FERRARI (REPRISE) / GRETA WILENSKY ‘20 [UMASS AMHERST]

HIGH OCTANE / MADI RUOFF ‘18

CRAYON PROSPECTS / MADI R UOFF /18

GERM / VICTORIA LUIZZI ‘17

UNTITLED / SONAALI PANDIRI ‘18

ZION / VICTORIA LUIZZI ‘17

PULLING ME UNDER / DORIT SONG ‘19

HOLD IT / DORIT SONG ‘19

UNTITLED / PAULINA SONG ‘19

PASSING THROUGH / JAE HYU N HA ‘19

BROOKLYN, OCTOBER / JULIA PIKE ‘19

DARK HAIR AND AUTUMN WINDS / MARISA FREEDMAN ‘18 [UMASS AMHERST]

INSTAGRAM DIGITAL / SONAAL I PANDIRI ‘18

WATCHMAN / TRENT BABINGTON ‘20 [UMASS AMHERST]

BAREFOOT IN KAUAI / MOLLY PINES ‘19

FALL, SENIOR YEAR / GRETA WILENSKY ‘20

DYNASTY / DORIT SONG ‘19

SEASIDE DUSK / HEATHER BRENNAN ‘20

SYMMETRY / DORIT SONG ‘19

ELEGY DANCE / MOLLY PINES ‘19

UNTITLED / IAN NANEZ ‘17

ORIGINAL BLISS / JAMES ROBOTHAM ‘18 [UMASS AMHERST]

TO THE THINGS OF THE WORLD / JINJIN XU ‘17

AHHHHH / GEORGIA BEATTY ‘16 [HAMPSHIRE]

JAN DREAMS OF FEET / JENNI FER FERGESEN [MOUNT HOLYOKE]

SEASIDE DUSK / HEATHER BRENNAN ‘20

The Jewish Girl by Miriam De La Riva Ovalle

(SEE)SENSE ALY LEVINSON my memories are tied up in touch: mouths and hands, shoulders and thighs, skin and skin, slipping down waistbands. true, it has been innocent sometimes â&#x20AC;&#x201D; our hands clasped, his body warm beside me, safe inside our blanket cocoon. but a gasped yes and we threw innocence aside. his scent of grass smoke, thick and sweet, smelling like the June when we first met. cum and detergent, his sheets nothing i can forget. i miss his taste salt like sweat, salt like tears, faint mint toothpaste, bitter stale beers. the roar of cars on the highway makes me think of soft snores in my ear, how the pokemon theme song played as we lay on the couch, his arm pulling me near to his chest. but the matte ruby lipstick on my lips that night, when the words on a phone screen made me sick, brings me back, makes my throat tight.

Weeping Man by Sarah Wishloff

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INHERITANCE RACHEL RAVELLI Within my grandmother’s home, there is a man I love. Painfully locked in her underfolds, he’d place his hand over mine. Sometimes he still watches down on me fading blue car rides through Massachusetts alleyways junkyards and country roads foaming peculiar Springs, sharpied green carpets outlining hands pure baby-powdered and momentous. Trapped behind her firm skin door, he’d promise no one is inherently dead though we would be home had he inhaled.

Suspended by Sarah Wishloff

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BROOKLYN LEAH WOODBRIDGE Small red-brick house with dirty white shades. Up the block, green, a cemetery of heroes young and old, angels lounging on the rooves of mausoleums, rows of white stones pinpricked by figurines that raise their chins with ancient dignity. On the uneven sidewalks grow dirty windows, ageing awnings and musty advertisements, promoting the purchase of pizza and coffee, huevos rancheros and home-made pierogis, earrings that sell for just under five dollars, and posters that sell for just over fifty. Past the thatched gates of the buzzing expressway, an artisanal cheese shop juts into the sky, edges jarringly sleek and bold, and the stench of its amateurism propagating throughout the atmosphere. Two red doors stand out under LED lights. Behind them children laugh, cry, and pound their feet. Young woman learn how to express the inexplicable. Big red-brick building with rusted blue bar bars. Across the asphalt, candy and chips lie disheveled, waiting to be grasped by the fragile palms of pre-teens who stumble up the block swishing carbonation between their cheeks, until they reach the beginnings of the looming, old, brown stones where velvet curtains conceal stained, chipped marble and fraying threads of wilted couches. Here, they record pictures that spin in their heads, breaking glass doorknobs, hiding under beds, and leaping away from the sporadic spouts of the garden sprinkler

that has a mind of its own. Those days are far behind you. Now, you witness Brooklyn at the break of morning, along with schoolteachers whose skirts touch the knee and yoga instructors whose scarves brush the sidewalk. Alice, the owner of your go-to café, chats with you over the steam of espresso of the grating nature of the island across the river. Head down. Hold your breath. The harsh orange of the circle indicating the F train provides an uninvited fracture to your line of vision. You can feel the moisture of your scalding drink seeping through its feeble paper cup. It’s only the river, you sing. It’s only the river. If only the grass could press once again into your skin, the lights of summer making fireflies out of the foggy air. Warm bodies lounge on thin blankets, their eyelids limp with the effortlessness of being. The prospect of presenting themselves as partially counterfeit has never broken through their profound paradise. Their eyes do not dart, their eyes do not search, their eyes do not attempt to evaluate or assess, for their eyes are soft enough to include all faults within the assumption of your immediate beauty.

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Measured with Coffee Spoons Measured with Coffee Spoons SARAH WISHLOFF

It was raining the afternoon they had agreed to meet, and caught in the heavy traffic of the waterlogged streets, she did not arrive until well after the agreed upon time. He on the other hand had arrived several hours early. Having awoken that morning to a weighty, tugging sensation at his chest, he had impulsively taken the train directly downtown and had spent the entire morning at a private table in a popular cafĂŠ, with nothing to do but wait for her and watch raindrops trail across the windowpane. Side by side, they raced along the cold glass, hurtling downward with a mortal sense of urgency. He watched as one by one they flung themselves forward 8

and collided with the wooden sill, coming to rest with a stillness that felt eerily prophetic to him. He felt their sudden stillness seemed to drain him of all energy, as though each absorbed bead were sucking him up into itself. It was the sort of rain whose melancholy is powerful enough to transcend borders, and painfully aware of the tightness in his chest, he thought that it must be raining everywhere in the world. It seemed he had been waiting a lifetime for her when, at last, she came tumbling into the shop, her presence announced by the hollow chime of a tuneless bell. It was not that she was the type to attract attention.

Even as her simple blue dress clung wet at her hips and breasts, she was unlikely to turn many heads. But there was a grace to her movements as she smartly brushed the water from her bare arms and a visible ease with which she carried herself that made him immediately think of her as beautiful. Watching her in the doorway, he suddenly had the notion that other men might observe her and think the same, and he wondered what ever happened to that gangly girl in her blue jeans and yellow rain boots. He ought to have moved or gestured to her, but found he was not able to. His

SHE LOOKED AT HIM AND FELT OLD.

body had betrayed him just then, and he could do nothing more than stare at the beautiful features of a girl he no longer knew, at her careful posture and her dark hair—once long enough to twirl absently in his fingertips, now cut blunt at the shoulders. His heart winced slightly as she searched the space for the man she was meant to meet, and he felt her look beyond him, felt her eyes pass through him and continue expectantly before returning with a look that held both recognition and, he thought, the slightest hint of disappointment. It was not disappointment, but hesitation reflected in her eyes. When she first received his call, she had felt CIRCUS SPRING 2017

such an odd combination of surprise and confusion—and one other emotion she could not identify, which had the same symptoms as hunger—that she hadn’t initially intended to meet him at all. It seemed such a strange thing to do, after all that time, as though she were wilfully throwing herself back into a younger body, tearing her mind away from the present. Her brain did not initially register him, sitting pensively at the window with his large hands curled still around a porcelain teacup, and so when she looked and saw him the second time she was once again filled with uncertainty. She couldn’t recall why it was that she had agreed. She looked at him and felt old. In her mind he was a boy; he had been frozen in a moment, with his hands in the air and rum on his breath. Seeing the stranger before her, she had to remind herself that time wore away at its victims evenly, and this made her feel abruptly uncomfortable in her own skin. It made her feel as though she had been displaced. They spoke for a while, recounting details of occupations held, residences occupied, and family members who had died in recent years. He asked about her life, but there was little of it in the stories and facts she relayed. She was regurgitating the dull details of a resume, the information that could be found in processed documents retrievable with a simple Internet search: dates and times and names, but not the mothball odour of her father’s breath nor the colour of the rose she had placed on his chest. The things that truly make up a life 9

many are heads. fragments But so there fragile wasand a grace raw thatinitially the possibility register that him,she sitting might pensively say yes. to heritmovements is difficult astoshe entrust smartly them withat theBut window he thought with his helarge knewhands how the brushed another the water person, from andher nearly bareimpossiblecurled rest still of hisaround life would a porcelain turn out.teacup, arms to and doafor visible the second ease with time. which and soShe when could shenever looked forget and the sawway himhe she carried herself Hearing that made her him speak, hethehad second looked time at her shethat wasrainy onceafternoon. again immediately thoughtthink that he of her knew as the beautianswer tofilled He with had bit uncertainty. his lip, theShe corners couldn’t of his ful. Watching his question her in even the before doorway, it had he left suddenly his lips. hadHe thecould notion feelthat it hanging other in the men might air when observe she paused, her and looking think the not at same,him andbut he wondered at some farwhat off world ever beyond happened the glass. to that He gangly had seen girl this in expression her blue jeans beforeand and yellow knewrain thatboots. it meant He she oughtwas to have looking moved through or gestured time, was to lost her, but in the found pain he and was not rapture able of to.aHis period body had far more betrayed romantic him just thanthen, this and one. But he could when dohe nothing asked her more about than her stare thoughts at theshe beautiful did notfeatures respondofina that girl he language no longer of poets, knew,inatwhich her careful he knew posture she felt, and her butdark in hair—once one-dimensional long enough adjectives to twirl that absently said nothing. in his fingertips, The expression now cut blunt that at was theatshoulders. last something His heart familiar to winced him slightly disappeared, as she searched and she the was again spacelooking for the man at him sheand wassmiling meant at to a joke meet,he andhad he not felt her told.look Thebeyond answerhim, was in felt her hereyes raised pass eyebrows throughwhen him and he told her continue of things expectantly he himself before hadreturning done, in the with ashock look that she held expressed both recognition at events that and, he had thought, alreadythe faded slightest into afterthoughts hint of disappointment. of his own memory. He could hear it It was evennot in disappointment, his own voice, as but he sounded hesrecall mouth why turned it was that down sheashad though agreed.he itation out reflected the words in her to stories eyes. When he no she longerShewere looked a wounded at him and animal, felt his old.eyes In her both first received had anyhisemotional call, she had connection felt such to,mind pleading he wasand a boy; stalling. he had Hebeen had frozen looked an odd painting combination for her of surprise perfect tales and within aatmoment, her knowing withthat his hands they had in the already confusion—and climactic moments one other and emotion resolutions she airfallen and rum apart, on and his breath. seeing itSeeing she wanted the couldthat not identify, were sure which to please had the butsame purelystranger more than before anything her, sheto had reach to remind across symptoms imagined as hunger—that in the context she of hadn’t his ownherself the table—to that timetouch wore his away cheek; at itsgently initially flatintended life. He to thought meet him he at knew all. whatvictims rest her evenly, fingertips and this on his made lipsher or in feel his It seemed the answer such a strange was, butthing he was to do, not yetabruptly hair; give uncomfortable him some kind in her of assurance own after all ready thattotime, let goasofthough the question, she were or theskin. that It made they could her feel repair as though what damage she wilfully possibility throwingit herself held ofback himinto having a allhadhad been been displaced. done. When he asked, she younger thatbody, he truly tearing wanted. her mind As long awayas he felt They she spoke couldfor ever a while, so easily recounting travel back from the asked present. the question, Her brain there did not remaineddetails to a memory of occupations of whatheld, theyresidences once were,

AS THOUGH REMEMBERING THE BEFORE WOULD BE ENOUGH TO TAKE THEM BOTH TO A PLACE WITHOUT ANY OF THE BURDENS OF THE AFTER.

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as though remembering the Before would be enough to take them both to a place without any of the burdens of the After. She remembered one evening in the summer when they had attended a wedding for a colleague—she couldn’t remember exactly whom. They had spent the entire morning getting ready, laying out her one good dress, tying and re-tying ties, painting on makeup she was only pretending to know how to use. It had been outdoors, and a grand wooden archway had been built at the foot of the forest, decorated with twisting vines and delicate white blossoms to proclaim forevermore that people had been happy here once. She remembered driving back on the highway in his red compact. She remembered the way, with the windows rolled all the way down, colours had blurred and the wind had whispered its secrets into her strewn hair. She remembered feeling as though they could continue on this highway, never slowing and never reaching an end. They would simply hurtle forward indefinitely, in giddy, visceral bliss. Eventually they had pulled into the driveway. They had gotten out and shut the doors, each heavy thud echoing as they made their way up the steps and went inside and undressed and removed makeup and brushed their teeth and prepared to sleep. It felt as though the day had been so long—at the end of it, the familiarity of a place called home felt suffocating. The end result never felt as though it was worth the hours of preparation, CIRCUS SPRING 2017

for eventually every sensation became a memory, and memories are just as unreliable and wishful as dreams— neither stays long enough to feel real. That afternoon, sitting across from him in the café, she longed more than anything to drive away with him in a red car, never slowing for an instant. She longed to pretend that they could really carry on that way, out of a certain loyalty to how they had been once upon a time. But she knew that to do so would cause her own heart to break, for to act based on an old memory alone would be a betrayal to how she felt in the moment. And there, looking into his wounded eyes, she felt only tenderness, and not love. And it is a testament to human fallibility that she could have gone so long without ever knowing there was a difference. He noticed there was a lady standing a few feet away, eyeing the two of them intently. It was clear that she wanted their table, and was wondering how much longer it would take for him to drink that single cup of tea. She had the regard of a woman who knew all that had happened, had watched the entire play unfold, and was waiting then, half-expectantly, half-disappointed, as if to ask: is that all there is?

Paulina Song 12

Domestic Trinity: Father, Son, Holy Spirit by Lorelei Dietz CIRCUS SPRING 2017

MISS AMERICA GOES BACK IN TIME GRETA WILENSKY Miss America drops a crystal champagne flute and everybody stops to look. After two glasses of white wine the room is spinning in its high heels and the people all look glossed over. Miss America is tipsy and tan and lovely in her evening gown. She knows they are looking. She knows they are looking and she remembers being fourteen and afraid in a room full of strangers. She remembers mornings mucking out stalls, summers spent trapped in the Midwest, flat and endless as an oil slick. Miss America snuck down creaky stairs and smoked Newports and drove a rusty Ford. She stole red drugstore lipstick and kissed boys in parked trucks. Miss America ran naked through her neighborâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cornfields once, twice, countless times. Miss America loved a boy named Tucker when she was in high school. A boy named Tucker can do no wrong, Miss America thought. The bruises on her ribs told otherwise. A man brushes by Miss America much too close, another runs to pick up the slivers of glass. Miss America is bored. Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not sorry for the broken glass, but she apologizes anyway. She has an appearance to keep up. She has big checks waiting to clear. She has Louboutins and a Chanel purse and thousands of miles between her and her hometown. There is a girl shirtless and sobbing in a bathroom

somewhere west of Iowa City. There is a knock on the door, amidst the throbbing noise of the house party. Miss America steps inside and cradles her former self. They are both crying. Miss America has a series of birthmarks dotting her hip. Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s always wanted a man to kiss them, but none ever have. In the too-brightness of the bathroom, she brushes her hand along the hip of her fifteen year old self. The skin is satin beneath her touch. The other Miss America touches her back. They hold each other like this, backlit in the fluorescent glow, and float up towards heaven, not looking back.

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GOLDILOCKS KRISTEN RILEY If I ever told you – told you about her Your knees would start hurting – burning Tiny fingers and a tiny waist Flaxen curls dancing around a pretty face Wandering late at night – to too many sweaty bodies In too many too small rooms – warned Not to drink things from strangers – scorned When she is desperately thirsty – and lets Intruders down her throat – knowing That they don’t entirely belong there – floating Elsewhere with them anyway To try to fit herself into crevices Of their bodies – venomous and Nothing feels right – nothing fits right Into the spaces she is wishing to replenish Ignoring their exoticism – different species And beastly claws pulling her to pillows To sing her lullabies – mahogany eyes Her nightlight – and to finally drift off and drift home To be somewhere alone Suddenly conscious – greeted by monstrous strangers And alien sheets – she was too big for here Too small for him – broke everything Knowing that she needs to vanish Before the sun comes up “He will devour you, buttercup” 16

Soaring home – missing a piece

One of Us by Autumn Guntor

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OLIVES SOPHIA LIAO My neighbor Ruby dates the guys she thinks she deserves which means they’re all wrong for her, hollow, whispery, wrinkled sheets and semen on the sheets before she even wakes up the next morning Five years old, we’re in the pool and I think she’s moonstone, water lapping across her iridescence, lunar phasing as she disappears and resurfaces from one end to the other Seven years old, we’re flying kites on the beach and I see solar wind running through her hair, a feverish halo the color of her namesake Nine years old, we’re at the planetarium and for the longest moment, I am convinced that stars cascaded from overhead into the seat next to mine I’ve never told her any of this, not even over cocktails and instead, swallow the thick, juicy olives on the end of my stirrer along with everything else

*** My neighbor Dakota is a crushed velvet dream, I mean listen to this: she tells me she wishes her boyfriend loved her enough to do something he shouldn’t even consider doing, she talks about intimacy as a type of violence Five years old, we’re in the pool and I think this is a girl who will hurt and cry enough but she’ll be enough salt to keep afloat Seven years old, we’re flying kites on the beach and I’m calm because there is someone by my side who also believes in the insane notion of flight Nine years old, we’re at the planetarium and my heart breaks because I know I will never tell her about any of this, not even over cocktails and instead, swallow the thick, juicy olives on the end of my stirrer along with everything else

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BALLOONS IN A FIELD, A GAME LOLA FADULU The sun is about to set. It’s golden hour. You’re in a field with only a red deflated balloon resting on your palm. The grass is golden, just like you are. Let your breath slowly inflate the balloon. It’ll regain its roundness, and its redness. Don’t forget to tie it. The sun will notice the balloon immediately. Rays will bounce off of it – so much so that the balloon will want to mimic. Let it. Bounce it up and down in your palm. Now let it rest. With your thumb and pointer finger fixed on the tie, straighten your arm and bowl the little red balloon into the air. No! Not yet. Wait! Now listen here. Your balloon cannot touch the ground or else it’ll pop. Listen! I said it’ll pop and not that it’ll deflate. Listen! If it deflates down into your palm, whether from too much heat or too much hoisting, simply share some of your breath and restart again. Listen! Don’t be discouraged if it does. There is really no way to know it was once deflated. Well, unless one’s head was cocked at the right moment, and well, happened to catch the spiral downwards. But back to the game. Listen! Like I said, your balloon cannot touch the ground or else it’ll pop. Once it pops, it’s over. It’s over. It’s over. It’s over. It’s over. It’s over. It’s overit’soverit’soverit’soverit’soverit’soverit’sOVER. I cannot emphasize this enough. Okay? Listen! You will have noticed that everyone in this field has balloons as well. Yeah, I hadn’t realized how many different colors there were either. What’s important to know is that they’re all playing the exact same game. Don’t ask me why they’re naked. Don’t ask me why they’re naked! Listen!! Their balloons cannot touch the ground either, or else they’ll pop. 20

Now let me ask you a question. Well, damn. There’s no question. Do you have any questions for me? ...I guess I’m not surprised you’re intent on winning. Well, I suppose I can give you a hint: be flexible, literally. No more? Okay. Let the game begin. Get out there. You’ll be fine. I hope... Okay. Okay. Naturally, you’re intent on your own balloon. Such focus. It’s lovely, really. Red truly is a lovely color. I sure hope you notice those around you though. Ah, good. Did seeing her balloon almost pop scare you? Interesting, huh? Exhilarating, huh?! How easy this game seems. Ho! Ho! But I can tell from the beads of sweat on your forehead that you’re getting tired. The beauty of golden hour is starting to frustrate you. When will the sun set? Nope. I won’t spoil that one with a hint. Nope. Nope. I won’t. I won’t. I’m sorry, I just can’t. Can’t. Can’t. Can’t. Can’t. He didn’t cheat! I didn’t say you couldn’t help keep a balloon that wasn’t your own in the air. Why, that would be a silly rule. If you’re closer to their balloon, why wouldn’t you exert the little energy to keep it afloat? Come on now, that’s common sense. Wow, a backflip and a kick, huh? A dive and a slap? Wait, no I’m confused now. Which balloon is yours? I thought your balloon was red. That last one was green. This one is blue and I can tell you’ve got your eye on that yellow one over there. They’re becoming indistinguishable. Where’s your red one? What do you mean you don’t know!? Oh, no I see it now. There. There. There. There. But that’s not you. No. You’re not even paying attention to it. Yet it floats.

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COMING TO TERMS MIKAYLA GORDON WEXLER In distant memories we fought home beneath wool. The moon illuminating the sheets tangled like intestines digesting, shedding, blossoming. My lips and your hands smoothing out creases, stretching limbs, uncurling chronic pain. In wintersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; past we sat on the city ledge. Exhaust pipe tears kissing the asphalt. Bubblewrapped in deep purple numbness, our fears ripped wide open. We did not know then; nothing decent ever stays. In the end we became blind in broad daylight. Our dulled irises searching in vain for times with less scar tissue for things dipped in gold. You swung higher and higher on the playground. I disintegrated into the wood chips. But today My everything misses you and your everything gives in and misses me too. So, for now, enough.

Soon Young Shimizu

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Milk by Jinjin Xu 24

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WHITE FERRARI (REPRISE) AFTER FRANK OCEAN GRETA WILENSKY And again, the memory: how we drove down the soft slick of the boulevard, silent after two a.m. The river a glimmering smudge beyond the dashboard. Laughter creaking in my ribs. Here is the ultimate poem. To hold the world between my teeth, soft-lipped and ravenous. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been trying to tell the story: how we come from a fatherless city, how the boys live with their palms outstretched. How I wept into their shoulders and how I wept into my hands and the days gathered like tree sap across my palms. Day breaking into night. Glasses breaking 26

in clumsy hands, a glittering sea spilled across our feet. How we made the carâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s interior into a kingdom, untouchable, hazy with smoke. My friends & me with our hungry heart chests. Like a Springsteen song. Like we were something the others were not. Like our hometown with its exit wounds flaring out its sides was something bigger than us all.

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High Octane by Madi Ruoff 28

Crayon Prospects by Madi Ruoff

CIRCUS SPRING 2017

GERM* VICTORIA LUIZZI You were not born yet when the trees were crystal— you, dweller in the dark cabin, you, the savagest hollow of winter-sound. Icicles filled the long window. I saw you moving on the horizon and lifting yourself up above it. Wood of my forests, stone out of my fields, when was mythology possible? Was it merely the moving of a tongue at the centre of the unintelligible, intenser than any actual life could be? Anything is beautiful if you say it is. Like the long echoes in long sleep you sit with your head like a carving in space and chant mother, my mother, who are you.

*A collage of lines taken from the following Wallace Stevens poems: “Long and Sluggish Lines”, “Hymn from a Watermelon Pavilion”, “No Possum, No Sop, No Taters”, “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird”, “The World as Meditation”, “A Mythology Reflects Its Region”, “Things of August”, “Description Without Place”, “Anything Is Beautiful if You Say It Is”, “The Old Lutheran Bells at Home”, “A Rabbit as King of the Ghosts”, and “Questions are Remarks”

Sonaali Pandiri

CIRCUS SPRING 2017

ZION VICTORIA LUIZZI The clouds hang at eye level, far off, cast shadows like birds that do not pass. (How low the sky is. How long and shallow the curve.) She asks me if I’ve been to the desert before. The sky is a great bird that does not pass, and grass and cactus grow from its hanging cry. I’ve been to the desert before. I saw the highway through the redness and grass and cactus grew in spite of its hanging cry. We wished we were alone out there, but I saw the highway through the redness, rocky walls beating and laced with capillary beds. We wished we were alone out there— beat our chests and felt rust beneath our fists, rocky walls beating and laced with capillary beds. It’s easier to love the walls, or the aspens (so we beat our chests and feel rust beneath our fists)— but I have to try for the scrub and sagebrush. It’s easier to love the walls, or the aspens, to say I dug up angels in those white woods.

The scrub and sagebrush have to try; everything drags its body up into the dry heat. Say I dug up angels in those white woods: what then? Everyone goes to the desert alone. Everything drags its body up into the dry heat, into a ringing underneathness. What now? Everyone goes to the desert alone. There is a tone and my head opens into a ringing underneathnessâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; someone felt this too and named it Godâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; and my head is an open tone below the far low clouds.

CIRCUS SPRING 2017

Pulling Me Under by Dorit Song

Hold It by Dorit Song

Paulina Song CIRCUS SPRING 2017

PASSING THROUGH

JAE HYUN HA

Blonde tobacco leaves; chewing gum, bleeding teeth. A sun sets over the dry buzzard desert; saguaro seniors melt still. Petrol station that owned the sun at dusk. Workers wear navy blue vests as they greet sneering men and foreign tourists, whose skin color changed every decade or so. No one visits a town that is an oasis of familiar giants: Target, Walmart, Dennyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s. Customers smell like evergreen car scents and with eyes glazed they scan hot dogs spinning mindlessly on a grill. Everyone forgets the flatness of the horizon behind the gas station lights at dawn. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s too easy to go home, with remnants of wind in your hair and firework residue between your toes.

BROOKLYN, OCTOBER JULIA PIKE

Brooklyn, October The soft, burnt smell of the radiator Rain, leaves, paint chips on the skylight My sisterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s shoes strewn around the house like bottles washed up onshore The cat asleep on my parentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; bed the softness of white paws and quilt Walls of books piled horizontally on top of the vertical stacks snuggled in shelves and bright book jackets My father laughing as he readies the coffee machine for the morning My mother reading on the blue coach the tiny backyard a jungle out the windows Belonging in this place --my water glass by my bed still And not --three stools at the island in the kitchen

CIRCUS SPRING 2017

Dark Hair and Autumn Winds MARISA FREEDMAN

A fantom sweat runs through my chest like a sweet summer rain ended in heartbreak. Your shirt was a battle-stained checkerboard, lines crisp and assertive and certain like roads taken by nobodies who knew they wanted to be somebody. It was September. I was collecting new beginnings. I was wearing yellow skirts and painting apartment walls and braiding bits of butterfly wings into my hair as if that could fix it all. Cure me, cure me, I’ve fallen ill to the cold air and the blistered toes and the way he looks at me when my lies grow parched then wilt. We were wilting. No. I was wilting. Quick sand, beach sand, clinging to your toes sand , sand trying to escape sand. The mud a serpent swallowing you whole, rolling you over, ripping you open. I screamed the hole way down until my throat was clogged with apologies. It juts itself inside. It asks no permission. And even then no one comes. This is not your mother’s sugar bowl. This is not your happy ending. This is unshaven legs and hibiscus flavored hatred and the noose made from christmas lights in a box in your parents garage. This is my hands, your throat, that bed, these lies. This is who I was before, this is who I thought I’d be. This is you, this is me. Regret lies between us each night, your breath a silent slaugh39ing to my ever-quivering lullaby.

Instagram Digital by Sonaali Pandiri

CIRCUS SPRING 2017

Watchman TRENT BABINGTON Having pissed for the morning, Martín, proud that he had managed so, and that he could ignore the old sweat in his cloths and place each tall, painful boot surely into the bluish crunch, hiked back up the dark side of the ridge, his hands shoved in his pockets and his kepi pulled tightly over his head. The salt flat rose with each step, golden and encircled by the interlocking maze of desolate mountains, their coombes crusted with snow. In the sun, he found a spot gravelly enough to sit, and sat, squinting. The wagon was still there, all the way down at the start of the slope, donkeys socializing; the tents were still there to his left. (Pitching them there, exposed, had been a risk, but the sunless side was colder, and the crew had since found that the wind flushed away the smell.) “Sereno” he thought as he felt the unbuttoned collar of his green, pressed-wool coat flutter against his chest like a flag. For a few moments, he ran his fingers down the red braid embroidered on the back of his sleeves before he remembered and shot around… but their piece was still there in the shadow, aimed jauntily across the flat and flanked by the careful pile of crates—behind it still rose the mountain that cast the shadow, and above it, the sun. He scratched his chin. He readjusted. The fire was out. Bad. Good. They would cook beans for breakfast, as they had for supper. 40

BAREFOOT IN KAUAI

MOLLY PINES

i am barefoot in kauai and my feet are dirty with the plum scarlet gravel of kuhio highway, but the clean waves are singing, come closer, come close. i am barefoot in kauai and when i walk the grass tries to grab me, to stop clumsy steps, because maybe if i too could stand completely still, the mountains might turn their misty eyes towards me and name me the beauty that i am. i am barefoot in kauai like everything around me, like the trees, like the geckos, like the dying coral reef. i am barefoot in kauai like the skinny boys doing back-flips off the pier into shallow water, their taut bodies cutting through the breeze like shards of glass, weighed down by nothing but their too-big swim trunks. i am barefoot in kauai walking tip-toed and carefree across volcanoes that do not scare me.

CIRCUS SPRING 2017

FALL, SENIOR YEAR

GRETA WILENKSY

Somewhere a girl is buried in a yearbook photo, smiling with all her teeth, the front door open, screen door swinging wide. Here, we bury the ghosts under shag carpet, pick at fate like ragged cuticles or bruised thighs. The girl in the yearbook photo laughs and a champagne glass cracks. She laughs, and the Gatorade bottle filled with vodka melts into the bleachers, plastic stench burning the air. Here, November is born ripped open at the belly and the girl in the yearbook photo is one pair of wings away from holy, spit lacing up her thighs.

42 36

This is the fall she learns how to unhinge like her body is falling out from inside itself, all softness, all blood. The girl in the yearbook photo wakes up buried in the stomach of Friday night with her gums stained purple. She doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t make the rules. Only zips up her blue jeans, gets up off the forest floor. Conjures home and it is a missed exit, a neon sign with all the letters burned out. The girl in the yearbook photo weeps, pulled over on the highway. In the slick darkness her headlights make twin halos over the edge of her vision, two solitary prayers for a peace that never comes.

CIRCUS SPRING 2017

Dynasty by Dorit Song

SEASIDE DUSK HEATHER BRENNAN The cliffs loom upward, surging with the tide Whose master pearl hangs frozen on a string A siren song enchants most ev’rything And sandy strata threaten passers-by. Dark clumps of roamers colonize the shores Their flitting fires casting shadows long Though cold winds blow, their voices ring out strong In tandem with the howling of the moors. Across the dunes whose desert stars adore Curls smoke and tang of whiskey on the breath Cigars are buried after gifting hazy death To lungs and vision, which spirit-youth ignore; Burning driftwood and burning men What strange communion rests within these stones That circle faces lit by faith alone— Faith in whatever lets them prowl the night again. Across the water, lighthouse beacons summon Slick creatures of the dark, far worse than those Whose skulls gleam human-bright in shadows; Their heartbeat cries in steady thump drum on. Oblivious demons laugh and stomp and reel On dusk-chilled sand that slowly steals away, And with it thoughts of creeping day Until the devil’s secrets by the waves conceal. O revellers, your phantom life pursue For day does come, cruel charioted sun— Spell-broken beach a graveyard dream to none As long as chaos rules both planes of blue. CIRCUS SPRING 2017

Symmetry by Dorit Song

CIRCUS SPRING 2017

MOLLY PINES

ELEGY DANCE 48

III. The yellow label on the old, black tape Reads “Boston, 1983.” My daughter Pushes the buttons on the VCR Until my past is dancing on the screen, A little grainy, black-and-white, but just As graceful as I felt back then. My kids Are laughing at me, at my shirtlessness, At how the hair has left my head since then And somehow now has ended up all gray And on my back, at how I had my hands On someone that’s not Mommy. I sometimes say I don’t miss dance: “It hurt too much.” I’m lying. All my dreams are of ballet. II. I saw a new damn doctor every week, But apparatus after apparatus Arrived and passed along my lower back Without any sign of stopping the grinding Pain, the perpetual pain, the pain that left Me crumpled in the middle of rehearsals, That kept me tossing, twisting through the night So that this broken spine of mine might let Me sleep, for once. It barely ever worked. I even let them cut me open twice, And still my sewn-up body screamed each day: The dream I lived out was becoming nightmare. All my pains were of ballet. I. A truly perfect body: rigid as marble And fluid as water simultaneously. Muscles flexed through the damp and palpitating Hours of toes crushed tight and elbows shaking, Of tiny, gorgeous girls, of the fogging windows In a summer studio, of seams, of sweat, And of Stravinsky. Here was perfection. Here Was all the frivolous confetti of life Melted. Just movements strong and pure and simple. Here was the only thing I’d ever wanted, In this tiny room, its floors all scuffed and gray. Here was a man’s one chance to be beautiful. All my days were of ballet.

Ian Nanez

CIRCUS SPRING 2017

ORIGINAL BLISS JAMES ROBOTHAM O, grace of spring, permit the stem, green and single-leafed, to rise, to weather winds and stiffen the stalk, feel the sun, flower, and bear fruit. â&#x20AC;Śâ&#x20AC;Ś.. We the people need fruit. We love when teeth pop skin, wet, luscious, pulpy strands flood the mouth, fill dry basins with nectar. Seed pebbles stuck in teeth, gulped down the tube, to meal mush in belly pit lurk in darkness, patient. Slight squeezes press firm, push accelerate through the tunnel, crushing weight on soggy shell

To the Things of the World by Jinjin Xu

CIRCUS SPRING 2017

ahhhhh by Georgia Beatty

CIRCUS SPRING 2017

Jan Dreams of Feet JENNIFER FERGESEN The feet were in her bed again. One stuck out the bottom edge of the blanket and stood silhouetted, long and bony, against the stripes of light between the blinds. She tore back the covers and flipped on the switch so forcefully her hand smarted; a black bruise would spread by morning. The feet remained for half a blink and then she was alone. Before she could sort out the dark, cotton-muffled images of her dream, a bolt of pain shot through her left ankle. She clawed for the orange bottle on the night table and poured out her two allowed pills. She had taken to crushing them in her teeth to hasten the effect. The bitterness was paralyzing, but relief followed. Jan shook the bottle. The rattle was disconcertingly hollow; just two doses left. She would have to get a refill tomorrow. Today, she thought, as the blue dawn light slipped through the blinds. The drugstore, five miles from her apartment, was the furthest she had ventured in two weeks. She 54

thanked the fates for taking only her left ankle as she maneuvered her right foot from gas to brake. Her right foot had hung suspended in the air, leg bent like a majorette midmarch, while her left skidded down the smooth granite somewhere in the Smokies. She hadnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t even made it out of the Carolinas. So much for taking the Appalachian Trail all the way to Maine. So much for the sabbatical the university had so reluctantly allowed her. There was nothing left to do but sit still and wait. She was tired of travel. Ben never tired of talking about it, from their first date four years ago until the day he left. Jan had written herself into his daydreams, seen them sharing strips of jamon in Barcelona, racing each other up Alpine trails lined with edelweiss. In their last year, she added a detail: a dark-haired child, running full speed ahead of them on chubby legs. In the drugstore, she allowed herself to be comforted by the quiet aisles. She liked how easy it was to

avoid talking to people here - not even a cashier to deal with, just a uniformed teenager texting quietly near the self-checkout machines. At her machine’s individual impulsebuy rack, there was a newspaper with a cover story about hikers in Nepal. The headline screamed of kidnapping, avalanches, slim chance of survival. Jan’s ankle throbbed. Ben mentioned Nepal before he left, didn’t he? He was drawn to Buddhist monks, their asceticism, the understated grandeur of the Himalayan monasteries. “So much better than the fake ones in California,” he said. “Run by a bunch of capitalist narcissists. They put on our culture like a costume and they

THEIR PLAN WAS SO AMERICAN, WITH THE CONNOTATIONS THE WORD HAD IN BEN’S VOCABULARY - SO FIRST-WORLD, DECADENT, IGNORANT. take it off when it bores them.” At least she knew where he wasn’t. The cover photograph featured one of those Himalayan monasteries, a looming presence behind three figures, two monks in orange robes and one wiry hiker. The hiker, ragged but obviously prosperous in his steel-toed boots, gazed to the left while the monks looked into the camera. He was the one who stayed behind, nursing a broken leg at the monastery, when the rest of his group went off into the mountains. CIRCUS SPRING 2017

His interview didn’t provide much useful information. He wasn’t even sure where his group was heading, only that they wanted to find a peak that wasn’t named on their map. No, they hadn’t had a sherpa guide with them when they left, but maybe they hired one in a village higher up. No, he wasn’t sure how many days worth of supplies they had packed. She sniffed at the hikers’ idiocy and choked on a noodle. Their plan was so American, with the connotations the word had in Ben’s vocabulary - so first-world, decadent, ignorant. That night, she smelled the feet before she saw them - ripe and pungent, like something left in a dark place to rot. Ben’s feet had only smelled like that once in her memory, on the hiking trip in the Sierras when he wore the wrong socks and got frostbite. He never complained, but when he began to shuffle strangely, rubbing the tips of his boots against the trail as if they itched, she forced him to sit down and peel off his cheap synthetic socks. The stench that arose from his boots shocked her less than the sight of his toes: hard and shiny as paperless crayons, the burnt sienna tipped with gray. She barely spoke as she melted snow on the camp stove for a foot bath. The thought of what might had happened had she not caught it gangrene, amputation, prosthetics, the loss of his long, tireless stride shook her so violently she was afraid her voice would break. Jan flipped on the lights. The feet gleamed waxily in the fluorescent overhead before they disappeared. 55

The pain that followed was so strong it traveled up her leg and into her stomach. She grabbed for the wastebasket, caught it just in time most of the vomit landed in the plastic liner, but some splattered across the rim and spotted the Parkay. She shook out two more pills and willed herself to focus on the bitterness rather than the pain and the nausea and the need to take out the mop. At least she wouldn’t have to worry about cramps this month. Jan’s menstrual cramps were also often painful enough to make her vomit, but this month the prescription painkillers would knock them out before they knew what hit them. Her period was late, anyway, thanks to the ten pounds she dropped during her month on the trail. She wouldn’t have lost so much unnecessary weight if she hadn’t been so damn cold. She thought was clever starting in March so that she’d be in the North by summer, but in her postDan haze she had forgotten to account for elevation. March on Springer Mountain was as cold as January on the coast. It was the kind of cold that made you long for a warm body, even the rank, dirt-lacquered body of a thru-hiker. His trail name was Grizzly. What had his real name been? Buck, maybe, or Wolfe - something equally bestial. He was kind enough, but he hadn’t mentioned condoms, and she didn’t insist. She and Ben had been careless themselves, and besides - the thought of packing-out the latex-wrapped semen of a stranger alongside her snack wrappers and used toilet paper 56

was too unpleasant to bear. By the third day Jan and Grizzly hiked together she regretted approaching him at the shelter. In the end, though, it was good he was there. It was Grizzly who had helped her to the trailhead after her fall and found a car willing to take her to the hospital. He hadn’t come along. “Happy trails,” he called to her, waving goodbye from the brush behind the parking lot, loathe to touch the gravel of civilization. The guilt came as soon as she was out of his presence. She had no reason to feel guilty, she reminded herself through the sobs that she blamed on her ankle; Ben said himself that he wanted her to feel free of him while he was gone. “I’ve been selfish,” he said. “I can’t let you pin all your ambitions on me. I don’t even know what my own ambitions are yet.” That was just like Ben, to spin something he was doing for himself into a selfless act. Jan knew he only left because of what she said on Friday. On Friday night, while they hid beneath their cotton sheets, Ben told the story of the Swiss Alps again. Jan - perhaps because the white cotton canopy felt like the cloud boundaries of a fantasy realm, or perhaps because four years seemed late enough to say it - mentioned the dark-haired child. Ben had spoken of his own dreams of children many times before, but it was different when Jan said it. “Do you really want that?” he said. Jan, staring at the cracked plaster of the family-housing ceiling, nodded. The conversation turned serious then, and it stayed serious for the rest of

the weekend. Instead of travelogue daydreams about Spain and South Africa, they spoke of the mundane future. They debated whether their combined incomes would ever be enough to support a family. “To support a family” - a phrase Jan never imagined coming out of Ben’s mouth suddenly appeared a dozen times a day. On Monday, after the speech about selfishness and ambition, he told her he was leaving. They’d spend a few months apart to make sure it was more than just inertia that kept them together. “I think we both need some time to think. I’ll try to be back before the semester starts,” he said. No promises. A week later, Jan gathered some of the backpacking gear he left behind and asked a friend for a ride to the southern terminus of the Appalachian Trail. In the third week after the accident the feet began to show up every night, sometimes two, three times before morning. They began lingering longer than usual, full seconds after she turned on the light, more than long enough to make out their telltale waxy sheen. She thought she saw a bluegray tinge beginning to bloom around the toenails. She wanted to reach out and touch them, to see if they felt as cold and hard as they looked, but before she could stretch her arms to the end of the bed they disappeared. Then the pain, and the vomit, and the pills. One morning, Jan read that the bodies of the hikers had been found, frozen stiff as fish sticks in CIRCUS SPRING 2017

their mummy bags somewhere around Dolakha. There was a memorial service scheduled for the following morning, conveniently streamed live on YouTube. The reader pronounced the hikers’ names slowly, with a long, respectful pause between each. Spencer Brennalt. Nathan Brown. There were ten hikers in all. Andrew Koster. Tyler Muneses. Ben’s name was always announced last in alphabetical order, and usually mispronounced. The reader had gone through nine hikers. “Preston Walker,” the reader said. Jan dropped her head into her hands. The feet appeared again that night, protruding from the covers so naturally they might have been attached to a body beside her. Jan turned on the light. The feet remained at the end of the bed, as solid and alive as her own. She reached out to touch them. This time, they let her. The feet were still, but they exuded health - an even pulse, subtly shifting sinews, a deep, steady heat. Her own touch felt cool against that heat. She kissed them, again and again.

Seaside Dusk HEATHER BRENNAN

The cliffs loom upward, surging with the tide Whose master pearl hangs frozen on a string A siren song enchants most evâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;rything And sandy strata threaten passers-by. Dark clumps of roamers colonize the shores Their flitting fires casting shadows long Though cold winds blow, their voices ring out strong In tandem with the howling of the moors. Across the dunes whose desert stars adore Curls smoke and tang of whiskey on the breath Cigars are buried after gifting hazy death To lungs and vision, which spirit-youth ignore; Burning driftwood and burning men What strange communion rests within these stones That circle faces lit by faith aloneâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; Faith in whatever lets them prowl the night again.

Across the water, lighthouse beacons summon Slick creatures of the dark, far worse than those Whose skulls gleam human-bright in shadows; Their heartbeat cries in steady thump drum on. Oblivious demons laugh and stomp and reel On dusk-chilled sand that slowly steals away, And with it thoughts of creeping day Until the devilâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s secrets by the waves conceal. O revellers, your phantom life pursue For day does come, cruel charioted sunâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; Spell-broken beach a graveyard dream to none As long as chaos rules both planes of blue.

CIRCUS SPRING 2017