SPRING 2019
Echoes Literary and Art Magazine Spring 2019 Barnard College
Cameron Lee
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Look at all those legs!
COVER A Perch by Trinity Reeve
WRITING honu by Anja Chivukula / 07 sea by Willa Cuthrell-Tuttleman / 08 La Reina de Azucar by C. Gonzalez / 12 Wet by Ella Bartlett / 23 Statement of Poetics by Perry Levitch / 24 on having been warthogs by Perry Levitch / 25 Shuffle by Gaby Edwards / 26 Condor Nest Livestream #923 by Eleonor Botoman / 40 Sticky by Juliana Kaplan / 44 Cassie by Genevieve Nemeth / 48 Andrews, Texas by Marion Gibson / 52 How I Grieved by Virginia Ambeliotis / 55
ART Cameron Lee / Table of Contents Katrina Fuller / 06 Taryn Gates / 08–11 Sophie Levy / 20-21 Chloe Zhang / 22; 53 Antonia Holton-Raphael / 37; 54 Annya Serkovic / 38-39 Caroline Wallis / 40-41 Hannah Hungerford / 42-44 Kassia Karras / 49 Stefani Shoreibah / 50 Sachi Thomsen / 51
06
Katrina Fuller
07
HONU
crumpled piece of char spat out with the driftwood, you blotch black ink beneath the gnarled cliffs, wrinkle-spot hidden in the smatterings left freckled on the shore, moon-smooth islands jutting up amidst beige, and you their continent, vellum and bone straining sutures as you tremble paths against the claw-dug earth, heaving dregs of ember flows with no end in sight, only the wavebreak, lonely Anja rhythm run itself aground, thunderous, Chivukula day-pace squandering beneath an ashen sky
08
SEA It’s summer in the city. You bring the beach towels, the cheap ones that pill and shed blue lint over our stomachs, and we ride the train all the way to the outskirts. It’s empty in the subway. The bottoms of our thighs stick to the seats. When we get to the beach, there are broken bottles, sea glass, a Butterfinger wrapper, a band-aid. Farther down, there’s a woman rolling a baby in a stroller with crocs on her feet. Not a lot of people here, you say. We sit, we put suntan lotion on our faces without rubbing it in, we drink special lemonade in the Poland Spring bottles from yesterday. A train passes along a bridge a couple of blocks away, and I can hear it with my eyes closed. I like this song. I touch the curves along your face and you touch mine and neither of us can see. What does it look like? you ask. I don’t know. I’ve never had to describe what my face looks like to anybody. I say: my eyes are brown. My hair is dark. My skin is somewhere in between and it feels like this, see?
09
Willa Cuthrell-Tuttleman
You tell me to close my eyes and ask you the same thing, and I do. My eyes are some color, you say. My hair is some color. We fill in the rest ourselves, what we can smell with our own noses and touch with our own hands and taste with our own tongues and hear with our own ears. I press mine close against your throat, wanting to know, listening close for the swallow, the air coming in, the living things swimming inside. Behind the rocks, we wrestle and we push each other. Sometimes we hit to know what that feels like, too. We agree that it doesn’t feel so good. This will be gone soon, you say. I know, I say. We go into the sea with our clothes on. I lean back while you keep me afloat in your arms. I feel the sun on my eyelids, and the water makes it so I can hear everything. I see you, I think. A little.
10
Light Studies
Taryn Gates
11
12
LA REINA DE AZ U
C C. Gonzalez
A R
13 ABUELA LIVED in the back room of the Garcia house on 105 Andalusia Avenue. It was a small room, with egg shell white painted walls and a twin sized cot that took up half the space. Only one window allowed for views of rotting palm leaves and small slivers of light to enter. There was one closet in the corner, filled with luxurious batas de casas1 of all prints and colors. On a seven-day drawer was an organized tray of multiple pill bottles, with long names for prescriptions my nine-year-old tongue could not begin to pronounce. Next to those pills were half empty jars of rich anti-aging creams from La Prairie––a reminder of the beauty queen she once was in Cuba. It was an indulgence Mami never understood, but Abuela always cherished. Abuela’s routine was simple while she lived at 105 Andalusia Avenue. In the mornings, she walked out to the kitchen and joined me and my sisters for breakfast. She took her café con leche with more milk than coffee, and made sure to add as much Splenda as Mami would allow. Sometimes, I would catch her in the corner of my eye sneakily trying to add just one more packet of the fake sugar. But her hands would fumble and drop the packet on the floor for the family dog, Pinky, to quickly lick up. In pure Cuban tradition, Abuela would then dunk her Publix toast into the cup, letting the salty buttered bread soak up the artificially sweetened liquid. If it was not café con leche, Abuela would drink a tall glass of the fake orange juice, Sunny-D, to wake her up. Mami kept the refrigerator in the garage visibly stocked with bottles and bottles of Sunny-D––unnaturally orange and toxic looking in their packaging. On every third Saturday of the month, Papi would buy in bulk the sickeningly sweet drink at Costco––just so Abuela always had the option. At breakfast, and on every other occasion, Abuela felt a self-appointed responsibility to keep us Garcia girls in check. She hissed while Gloria cried about the lack of French toast sticks 1
Night gowns
14 on her plate and yelled at me when she heard I did not finish my scrambled eggs. “Piensa de esos niños en Cuba!” her voice would bleat out to us at the dining table. I rolled my eyes, and let my scrambled eggs go untouched. When us Garcia girls were finally out the door––on our way to school or day care or running errands with Mami - Abuela returned to her room and spent most of her day with her head on those frumpy cot pillows. She let her favorite talk show, Cristina, fill up the small room with pre-recorded laughs and ridiculous interviews with trendy actors she did not care enough to know about. Every other afternoon, Mami drove Abuela to the local clinic down Flagler Street for her dialysis treatment––past Abuela’s beloved La Rosa Bakery. Before diabetes took away her eyesight, Abuela would ask Mami to go see the delicately baked pastries, so perfectly cut and assembled in their large trays shelved on top of each other. If she could not take a bite, at least her other four senses enjoyed the delight that were freshly baked Cuban pastelitos. Occasionally on these visits, Mami would order a guava y queso pastelito and describe to her mother in such exact detail how flaky the pastry was or how sweet the guava tasted. When the sensory description was not up to par, Abuela would walk straight to the counter and yell at the camerera2 on how the pastries were a disgrace to the Cuban tradition and community in Miami. And yet––without fail––Abuela and Mami would be at La Rosa Bakery the next week to give them one more chance at baking a guava y queso pastelito the right way. Indeed, it was Abuela who taught Mami to never accept anything less than perfection in her consumer goods. When Mami was in middle school, Abuela would drive them both to McDonald’s for fresh fried French fries as their American treat. If McDonald’s served them lukewarm or unsalted fries, Abuela 2
Waitress
15 would park the car and march Mami and herself into the golden arch establishment. Once inside the fast food chain, she stomped to the counter and shook the bag of French Fries at the young server. “I paid two dollars for these French fries, and they are not hot or crispy!” her thick voice getting louder with each syllable. Abuela knew she was a spectacle, but if fleeing her beloved Cuba and becoming a proud American citizen taught her anything, it was to stand up for what you believed in. In no time, Abuela and Mami would be back in the car with fresh hot French fries in their lap. On these afternoons in the clinic, Abuela sat herself down in a worn out brown La-Z-Boy and greeted Polly, her favorite nurse on shift. Abuela had slowly grown to trust Polly, and definitely appreciated the nurse’s willingness to listen to stories about her youth in Cuba. While Polly pricked Abuela’s arm with two needles, Abuela closed her eyes and squeezed Mami’s arm hard. Her veins pulsated through her paper-thin skin, visibly showing her blood’s circulation throughout the treatment. Mami could not stand to watch her own mother in pain. Abuela would twist her legs together, or bite her bottom lip. But Mami would still make eye contact with Abuela, to let her know she was there, by her side. Pain, and the pain of others, was something Mami could never handle well. When Isabella would run down the hallway and bang her head on the corner of the wall, Mami would cry out and leave a trail of kisses all over Isabella’s forehead. When Gloria skidded her knee learning to ride a bike, Mami squeezed Gloria’s hand until her fingers turned white from loss of circulation. To watch her mother’s blood be filtered through loud, whirring machines only echoed the strenuous discomfort Mami felt inside. Yet, Mami saw it to be her daughterly duty to drive her mother and stay for her three-hour dialysis treatments. Abuela would get home around the same time as my sisters and I got home from our tennis practices, soccer games, or ballet rehearsals. She would walk back to her room and lie her body down
16 on the small cot once more. There she closed her eyes and allowed her body to rest in the singular seconds of quiet that filled the Garcia home. Almost immediately, us Garcia girls disrupted the quiet with our dance marathons located in the family room. I was always DJ, and chose a mix of Celia Cruz, NSYNC and Britney Spears as our track list. Abuela would simply stay put in her room, too disturbed and tired to watch the show us Garcia girls put on in the room next to hers. The dance marathons that resumed in the family room lasted whole afternoons, an unlimited energy radiating from our tiny bodies. Gloria and Isabella took it upon themselves to make every inch of space their own, and began to jump on the couch to keep things interesting. This truly pissed off Abuela, as she could hear our jumps from couch to couch through the vibrating walls. Our shrieks and giggles and singing could not distract Abuela from our activities, and thus led to her bleating yells of my name from her small back room. “Carolina! Carolina! Carrrrrrolina!” Her rolling of the r in my name acted as an authoritative pronunciation I hated to hear. After the fourth or fifth time she shrieked my name, I left Gloria and Isabella in their own antics and answered Abuela’s call. I was never really interested in visiting Abuela’s room. It smelled like old people, a smell that usually acquainted me at relative’s homes where I was given too many kisses on the cheek. The light that filtered through the window only emphasized the stale dust that floated in the air. I entered Abuela’s room to see her, laid down on her bed, eyes closed. “Yes Abuita? You called me?” I asked her as I slowly stepped closer to her bed. She would turn on her side, eyes still closed, and arms stretched out to reach for my face. I knew Abuela was blind, but I could never wrap my head around her condition. I was too fresh with youth, still seeing everything as if it was for the first time. I would come just close enough for her to place her hands on my cheek. “Carolina,” she then cooed, sweetly. Her frail, spider
17 veined hands traced themselves around the baby soft skin on my forehead. I noticed her own skin began to turn darker, as if she enjoyed afternoon sun bathing sessions when us Garcia girls were out. But I only ever saw Abuela in her room or at the dinner table. “Please, can you and your sisters stop jumping.” She croaked out in thick, accented English. I nodded to her request, frozen in place as her hands still caressed my face. “Y esquela?” she then asked. I mustered up some lame response, a mixture of updates on my good grades or upcoming birthday parties I would be attending that weekend. Her hands would then retract themselves from my face, and slowly she would place them beside her. I noticed the pain in her twitching muscles, how every movement of her body was a chore in of itself. “Que linda eres.” She cooed once more to me. I never believed this, since I knew Abuela could not see the snotty, sweaty pre-pubescent girl I was. But I would smile to myself anyways. I was the last grandchild Abuela got to see––Mami told me this. I was the last grandchild she had a visual memory of. And because of this, she always told me how beautiful I was. I ate it up, always. “Gracias, Abuita.” I thanked Abuela. I would run back to the family room, and lower the music a bit. I then yelled at Gloria and Isabella to stop jumping on the couches, and began to shake my hips to Celia Cruz’s cries of “azucar!” through the speakers again. Mami told me that Abuela loved to hear about how I was doing in general, that she spoke about me during her dialysis treatments. I beamed inside, proud to know that I was the favorite. Even if I did not enjoy the back room visits to Abuela, I would never reject any affirmation. Abuela only ever left her bedroom in the late afternoon once, where she joined my sisters and I for dinner. While we scarfed down our arroz con pollo, Abuela slowly brought a spoonful of the dish to her mouth. Her hand shook, spilling some of the arroz on the floor. Mami would then take action and spoon feed
18 her mother, the tenderness and patience between them palpable. There were certainly bad days. The kind of bad days where Abuela was not able to come to neither breakfast nor dinner. She was not able to yell my name when my sisters and I got too rambunctious. She was not able to feel my face, to see how much I had grown in mere weeks. She was not able to tell me how pretty I was and in turn I was not able to see her toothless smile. I began to miss it all. These days of Abuela’s absence became more and more frequent. Her hospital stays got longer and longer. Mami stopped coming to dinner too. It was not unusual for us Garcia girls to come home to an ambulance outside the house on 105 Andalusia Avenue. It was a stomach-turning image to see Abuela carried out on a stretcher, her eyes still closed. I did not yell to her, but Gloria and Isabella cried hard and loud. I stood there, my spine frozen. I saw Mami, fresh tears still on her face. We all collectively felt helpless. After one hospital visit, Mami came home and told us Abuela had her right big toe amputated. Her body began to shut down on her, and the first thing to go was her big toe. I could not help but laugh, and Mami scolded me, hard. “Your Abuela is not well, and you laugh?” She hissed at me. I began to cry big fat tears. Mami did not like when us Garcia girls visited the hospital. She was scared we would get sick, or maybe she did not want us to understand what was really happening to Abuela. I only heard in passing the terms “diabetes” and “heart failure” when Mami and Papi would talk alone in the kitchen. I knew though when Abuela’s sickness became really serious. Abuela’s stays at the hospital spanned into weeks and Mami eventually started to let us visit. Papi would pick us up from school and we would drive to Doctor’s Hospital, sweaty and sticky in our plaid jumper uniforms. Mami only had us see Abuela in small pockets of time, usually when Abuela was asleep. I was upset by this, and yelled that I wanted to talk to Abuita right now. Mami began to cry at my temper tantrums, unable to emotionally deal
19 with three growing little girls and the decay of her mother. My temper tantrums only got worse, and I would begin to bite Gloria or scratch at Isabella if I was not able to see Abuela that day. I began to crave Abuela’s hands on my face, her soft fingertips gently on my cheeks. I wanted to tell Abuela about my day at school, about how Robert pushed me at recess or about how my new friend Cristina drew me a picture in glitter markers. I wanted to hear her say my name, with the rolling of the r included. I wanted to hear Abuela yell my name, Carolina, Carolina, Carolina. Over and over and over again. Abuela tried to say my name when she saw me during my few visits. Sometimes I could hear her, other times the big medical machines would beep too loud and drown out her attempts. Nurses ran in and asked me to leave, and I would start to cry in the hallway. I did not understand what was happening to Abuela. Mami and Papi would still not give me an answer. They would continuously tell me Abuela was not doing well. Mami would then start to cry and I knew not to ask any more questions. Abuela was not going to get better, Mami told me and my sisters at breakfast. After months of Abuela in and out of the hospital, of her routine at 105 Andalusia Avenue officially and steadily broken, Mami accepted Abuela’s decline. Mami did not let us say goodbye to Abuela, and I screamed so loud the neighbors called. I pushed Mami hard and hit Papi everywhere. I was mad. I could not process why my parents did not let me say goodbye, why my parents thought it was not a good idea. I was the last granddaughter she ever got to see, I held importance to her. Yet, Mami shook her head and cried more to me. She whispered sorry into my ear and began to comb her hands through my hair. “Don’t cry. You sound just like her when you do.” I cried harder.
20
khoda hafez
Sophie Levy
21
Ishallah aroosi bashi
Sophie Levy
22
Bits and Pieces
Chloe Zhang
23
I was pregnant last night and then I wasn’t, my head my feet my walk to the bathroom and then down-leaning lacing with water and summation, frailty coming with the termination of my life and my kind and I am no longer wanted, halfway. Whose mammoth can be housed inside me and whose mountain can I hold with these hands? How am I supposed to breed premonochromatically and reap with meaning and weep in small batches when in need, I say, creep and keep over when you feel you want to keel over. When hands hinge higher and no one will fall into them, the rain and its meandering slow emancipation of my skull, rendering itself genderless, regressed and loved without thought. I wanted to guard this and become vesselled and to float in my own water, breaking at the last possible tide. I have said to the art on the walls that I must lay horizontal so I can wet myself with what comes out of the sky.
WET Ella Bartlett
24 You must try to drag the welcome mat through the dog door by your teeth. It will not fit, it will bend and bristle and you must catch that noise tightly inside a Tupperware for keeps. Learn to do this and you learn to bring your lovers to you, and back to you. Poetry is nothing like very very few things. Be a beast, be a baby, be a woman (or quit that game). No time to do anything but bite down.
STATEMENT OF POETICS
Perry Levitch
25
ON HAVING BEEN WARTHOGS we braid up the bright plasticky manes of the bright rubber ponies, set their curls before we cram them down the castle dungeon trapdoor, their snouts caving. we pull every red ingredient from grandma’s fridge doors and ant-flecked cabinets, mix them in her yolk-colored bowl, call this hexing. do it weekly. we parade down to the withered strip yard no one mows, five spins counterclockwise, flinging liquid from the crystal decanter filched from the basement, call this circle of doom. cold things are sweet things, worchester sauce is a red thing, things in the dark are no things. lay wishes upon it. do it weekly.
Perry Levitch
26
S H U F F L Gaby Edwards
E
27 Rae stared at the front door while scratching an itch on the nape of her neck. Of all the things she could be doing right now—finishing her third biography on Paul McCartney, changing the sheets in her guest room, wallowing in the five-year anniversary of her divorce with Rick—she was at her parent’s house for dinner. Rae despised these weekly dinners. It always meant trouble. It meant mediocre deli sandwiches with a side of her mother, Peggy’s, senile cruelness. Then, it inevitably meant sobs, an unflinching flood of monstrous sobs from her mother to conclude the evening. Just last week when Peggy found out she hadn’t been invited to Rae’s Bridge tournament, she threw a thunderous tantrum and called Rae a “floozy burnout.” Say what you will about Peggy’s mental state, but when she had her rare moments of clarity, she took advantage of them with a bloodthirsty fervor. She was observant when she could be. She smelled weakness the way dogs in airports were trained to sniff cocaine. That’s why, on the car ride there, Rae decided this would be the last one. Sure, she would show up for holidays, birthdays, maybe even a casual lunch planned weeks in advance, but that’s all Rae had left to give. She didn’t have the energy to keep licking her wounds. Through the door Rae could hear the faint murmurs of Dateline. She wondered how long her parents’ eyes had been glued to the screen, how long their asses had been glued to their La-ZBoys. She guessed since lunchtime. The house was completely dark except for an orange glow radiating behind the curtains of the TV den. Rae knew that lamp well because Peggy threw a fit the one time her father, Jerry, tried to replace the bulb with a higher voltage one. Peggy only liked seeing the silhouette of herself. The shades were always drawn during the day. Rae’s finger hovered over the doorbell. She made a deal: she’d countdown from three and then press it—the same tactic she used as a child at the community pool, teetering on the highest
28 diving board while looking down at her mother. 3… 2… 1… Her finger was still lingering. She decided to countdown from five. Five was a more reasonable number anyways. 5… 4…. 3… 2… 1 ½ …. Erika, Rae’s daughter, pulled up into the driveway right as Rae came to terms with breaking her own promise. Erika walked up towards the house, through the front yard which had become a hospice for dying tomato plants ever since Peggy stopped going outside six months ago. She was carrying the plastic bag of deli sandwiches. “Hi, Momma!” Erika’s voice was bright and sing-songy. “Have you been waiting for me?” “No, no… I just got here.” Erika raised her eyebrows, Rae blushed. “Ready?” “As ready as I’ll ever be.” Erika rang the doorbell. They heard one of the Lay-Z-Boy’s creak to its upright position and the pitter patter of footsteps come closer to the door. The lightswitch in the foyer turned on and Jerry opened the door. “Hi Pumpkins!” He hugged Erika with his right arm — the left was occupied by his beloved Yorkie-Poo, Jesse. As they hugged, the bag of sandwiches swung from Erika’s forearm and nearly hit Jesse’s delicate snout. Jerry recoiled, nustling Jesse further into his chest and whispering sweet nothings into his ear. He then moved towards Rae, and they embraced like neighbors, patting each other’s backs softly and staring at their feet. “One sec before you come in, kiddos. Just letting you know Peg is on some new meds for her blood pressure, so if she seems a little funny just go with it.” They shuffled single-file into the narrow foyer, forced between the wall and the glass table covered with off-brand Swarovski crystals and porcelain Santa Clauses. Jerry flicked on light switches as they slipped further into the house. The sound of
29 Dateline now roared while the orange light from the TV den faintly glowed from the doorway. “Jerry!” Peggy called from the TV den. Her voice was shrill and sharp and wobbly, dribbling out like spoiled milk from a carton. “I need help getting up.” “I know, Peg. I’m coming.” Jerry placed Jesse down on the floor and signaled with his index finger he would just be a minute. Erika set down the sandwiches on the dining room table and headed towards the bathroom. Rae stood in the middle of the hallway with her arms crossed. Hushed voices fumbled out of the den. “Whose house is this?” “Peg, this is your house.” Rae peaked her head into the TV room, and as her nose crossed the threshold of the dark, enclosed den, the stench of microwaved casserole and spilled coffee hung in the air like fog. She tapped three hollow knocks on the side of the door frame, but they didn’t notice. Rae watched as Jerry grabbed Peggy’s arthritic hands and slid her forward on the chair, the velour of her tracksuit gliding across the faux leather until her ass was halfway hanging off. Next he placed his hands under her armpits and lifted her. Her swollen feet, stuffed inside purple fuzzy socks stuffed inside green crocs, were now touching the floor. Rae was amazed Jerry was still able to hoist Peggy up, who was more-or-less shaped like a deflating hot air balloon. Of course it hadn’t always been this way. Forty or so years ago, before Peggy quit smoking, when all she would eat in a day was a bowl of oatmeal and a bowl of soup, her arms were light and graceful like dangling ribbons. Rae would come home from school and find Peggy prancing around listening to Frank Sinatra in the kitchen, fingers twirling to “Come Fly With Me” like a ballerina. They would share an afternoon cigarette and ash them into the dirty pans her mother hadn’t cleaned all day. Blowing out a cloud of smoke, Peggy would muse about her own beauty, how it wasn’t
30 appreciated amongst the trolls of Traverse City, Michigan, or Crane, Missouri, or whatever other Midwestern dump they lived in that year. “I was the Cherry princess two years in a row. Had I moved to Los Angeles as a girl I bet I would be Mrs. Franky Sinatra.” Rae used to believe it. Grabbing onto Jerry’s forearm for support, Peggy finally stood up. The sight of Peggy walking was something to behold. Everyone held their breath as she walked across a room. Her back was slanted to the point the whole upper-half of her body was diagonal to her legs. She could barely lift her feet — instead sliding them an inch or two at a time. Behind her back her grandchildren called it The Shuffle. Erika had coined the term when she was twelve. “I just found out the host of Chopped is a gay man,” proclaimed Peggy. Her pudgy eyelids drooped over her beady eyes like an awning. This was one of the warmer welcomes Rae had ever received from her mother. She wouldn’t complain. Rae nodded. Peggy’s face seemed greyer than usual. “Huh, you don’t say? Well, nice to see you. I’ll go set the table with Eri.” Rae left the door frame and headed back down the hallway, finding Erika sitting at the table on the her phone. She had already laid out everything: the plaid, polyester napkins with the KMart logo, the floral, chipping plastic plates, and the forks and knives with the red chrome handles. A minute later Jerry escorted Peggy from the den, placing her special back pillow on the chair before guiding her down. Erika gave Peggy a kiss on the cheek. For a moment Peggy stroked the spot Erika had kissed, and smiled. It was easy to overlook one of Peggy’s smiles; her lips were so small and shriveled they could easily pass for another wrinkle, another crease in her folded skin. Jerry began dividing out the sandwiches: salami and mayo for Peggy, BLT for Jerry, French dip for Rae, and turkey provolone for Erika. Besides the sound of mouths tearing into bread and
31 chomping on slimy deli meat lubricated with condiments, they were all quiet. Jerry stared down at his limp sandwich. The white bread was a sickly grey color, the lettuce drooping like the skin that hung from his neck. The last time the four of them enjoyed a homecooked meal was on Peggy’s seventy-fifth birthday. Jerry grilled up hot dogs, brussel sprouts, and squash; Peggy even baked her famous chocolate zucchini cake. But Peggy had left a burner on, which eventually set fire to a napkin which triggered the smoke detector which alerted the fire department. Peggy swore she hadn’t even touched in the first place. Next week Rae showed up with deli sandwiches. “You know I was checking out the coupon page earlier and they gotta good deal on that coffee we like down at Meijers this weekend. Dollar ninety-nine,” Jerry said. Nobody looked up. Peggy grunted in acknowledgment. “Also I bought a lotto ticket. Wanna give it a shot, Eri?” Ever since his retirement, Jerry had gotten in the habit of buying lottery tickets at the gas station on Barnes Road three times a week. The biggest win had been ten years ago: forty dollars. He marked it on the calendar every year: June 16th. Years ago, when the whole extended family still spent Christmas in Jerry and Peggy’s living room, the mornings always began the same: The grandchildren would snatch the lottery tickets Jerry had left in their stockings and wait in a single-file line for Jerry to distribute pennies. They would scrape the tickets furiously, collecting the scuffed debris under their fingernails until they all had blackened french tips. The other grownups would watch on the couch in mild disgust and amusement as their children became possessed by the possibility of pocket money. “No thanks, Pops. All you.” Erika took another bite of her sandwich and checked her phone under the table. Jerry’s face mirrored that of his own puppy: pleading eyes, furrowed brows. He didn’t understand age was more than just a number. Erika
32 was twenty-nine now. Satisfiction did not come from the tactile sensations of lottery scratching as it once had when she was a child. Now, she preferred a well-roasted sweet potato, or a 25% tip at her waitressing job, or a turtleneck that fit really, really well. “Who knows? Maybe it’ll be my lucky day.” He smiled, but not wide enough for his dimples to emerge. Despite the slight hunch in his shoulders, Jerry was remarkably nimble. He was tall and lanky, and decided to grow out a ponytail a few years back for fun. Now it looked like his head was sprouting a tail. His boyish innocence still clung to him like toilet paper on a shoe. He assumed everyone also held onto their childish wonder until their knuckles turned white. “Rae, your hair looks different,” Peggy declared. She looked up from her sandwich, a drip of mayo on her chin, eyes narrowed on Rae’s graying blonde hair. “I haven’t gotten it dyed in a little while. Maybe that’s why.” Rae touched a few of her split ends, rubbing them between her fingers. Peggy stared straight forward at Rae, her own silver matted hair perched on top of her thick head like a bird’s nest. “Mmmm.. looks cheap.” “Well, in this economy I am cheap,” Rae muttered. Maybe she wouldn’t engage this time. Let her mother blow off some steam and move forward, devour her sandwich and be on her merry way. “Has Rick seen it?” “Excuse me?” Rae growled back. “All right, all right, everyone. Let’s cool down, okay? Take a breath, all right?” Jerry’s voice cracked. He reached over and held Peggy’s hand, all the while gazing lovingly at Rae. He was always trying to communicate telepathically with Rae, send her signals that Peggy wouldn’t be able to decipher. His effort to please everyone rarely worked. Jerry took the last bite of his sandwich and licked his fingers dramatically, slurping up the last dribbles of mustard. “You
33 know it’s my birthday coming up this Saturday. Was thinking of cooking up some spaghetti. You like spaghetti don’t you, Rae? And you Eri? How about that boyfriend of yours? He like spaghetti?” Erika looked up and gave two thumbs up, forcing a tepid smile as her mouth chomped. “It’s not your birthday this weekend, Jer. Your birthday’s not til November,” Peggy croaked. It took Rae a moment to let her mother’s words sink in. She had been busy staring at the bookshelf adjacent to the table wobbling with knick knacks—tiny angels, reindeer figurines, snow globes. Every wall in the dining room was adorned with a bookshelf of trinkets that Peggy had acquired throughout the years. Everything was so precariously placed that if a window was opened too high on a windy day everything might come crashing down, covering the floor in polished shards. Rae was the only one who knew that at least half had been stolen, maybe more. Rae was twelve the first time she watched her mother snatch a snowman ornament at the Disneyland gift shop and drop it into her purse. That’s why she always needed help carrying her suitcase at the end of a trip—too full of glossy garbage. “Peg, it is November. Remember we watched the Macy’s parade just a few days ago?” “Mmm..” Peggy’s voice trailed off, eyes glazed at nothing in particular. “I’ll make you my key lime pie then. It’s my favorite you know.” Everyone knew that Peggy hadn’t so much as cracked in egg in at least five years. “Maybe Dad should decide since, you know, it is his birthday.” Rae looked up at Peggy, who was trying to poke a fallen piece of salami with her fork. Peggy’s crooked fingers gripped the utensil like a child first holding a pencil. She stabbed down onto the plate like she was playing Pin Finger, yet the hunk of meat kept sliding past her fork, refusing to surrender. “Oh, Rae, c’mon. I don’t mind. I love key lime!” Jerry reached over to help Peggy stab the salami. He then steered the
34 fork into the mouth. A small wave of nausea lurched in Rae’s throat at the sight of Jerry feeding her, especially the way he hummed “good” after she had taken the bite. But nothing could compare to the queasiness she had felt the time she walked in on Jerry brushing Peggy’s teeth as Peggy sat on the toilet. Rae wasn’t sure when Jerry had lost a part of himself in her, when his free-will was subsumed by her swollen ankles, bloated jowls, and bulging belly. Rae must not have been paying attention until it was already gone. Peggy squawked, “I like you more when you’re quiet, Rae. You have a foul mouth.” “I can’t take it anymore,” Rae shrieked. Her voice escaped her like the sudden flash of static on a television. She sounded like her mother. Clearing her throat and pushing down phlegm, Rae began silently reciting the speech she practiced in the car. “I can’t just… I can’t keep doing this. I was going to wait until after we were finished eating, but I think I’ll just say it now. I need some time away from these dinners. It’s just been too hard.” Everyone stopped chewing. Rae looked towards Jerry. “If you’d like to make plans, call me and we can figure something out, but this isn’t good for me. I’m sorry.” “How do you mean, Rae? We’re family. Say, why don’t we do every other week?” Jerry’s voice was fragile, quivering like a harp string. “Please just listen—” Peggy interrupted. “Whose house is this?” Her voice was soft. “Peg, this is our house,” Jerry cooed. “I… I don’t know.” Peggy’s eyes were scrambling now, darting left and right, up and down. “Look around.” Jerry pointed to the shimmering snowflake ornament on the bookshelf. “See there’s the ornament Eri gave you last year for Christmas.” Peggy’s eyes narrowed. She began gently trembling in her chair, as if she was shivering from the brisk November breeze.
35 “Take me home, Jer. Please.” The fear in Peggy’s eyes was haunting. For years Rae witnessed the deterioration of her mother’s body and mind. She watched Peggy’s skin sag further away from her bones and her cruelness spread like a rash, yet she had never seen Peggy afraid or truly vulnerable. “Dad, what’s going on? Is this some sort of side effect of the new meds?” Jerry looked up to the dinky chandelier dangling from the ceiling, or maybe the heavens. He began consolidating the trash on his plate, crumpling the wrappers and napkins into an indistinct, grotesque mass. “Well, I suppose so.” “You suppose? How often does this happen?” Rae’s ears were getting hot and the pit of her stomach came into focus. She wanted the taste of onions out of her mouth. “It’s just a little confusing at night that’s all. You know how it goes when things are dark and she’s tired. I’ll just take Peg for a little drive. That always calms her down, refreshes her memory.” Rae couldn’t help pointing to her mother like a zoo animal. “Look at her, Dad. She’s not well. You’re sedating her to the point she has no idea where she is, and for what?” Peggy eyed Rae’s index finger. She pursed her lips together until they turned white and miniscule. “I don’t like that tone, Rae. Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?” “See?! What are you doing? Get her off those meds, Dad. You’re driving her crazy.” “I can’t, Rae. I just can’t take her off. It’s not that simple. Nothing else is working.” Jerry lifted Jesse from under the dinner table and placed him in his lap, letting him lick the residue tang from his fingers until they were shiny. “This is why we need you. Please don’t walk away from us now. It’s your turn to take care of us.” “You two are slowly killing each other and I won’t sit around to watch. Don’t call me until you’re ready to talk about options. I mean real, practical options like a nurse or a home.” Rae
36 gathered her things, picking up her red coat from the unkempt, green velvet couch and her purse resting on the tufted ottoman. From the hallway she glanced back at the three of them sitting at the table. They all seemed small and stiff, like bisque dolls perched in a staged dining room. Rae looked at Erika, who had been quiet all night, hands tucked in her lap like a choir boy as tensions sizzled. Rae wondered how Erika would handle this situation when she was sick and ailing. Would she show Rae more mercy? Would Rae deserve it?
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Antonia Holton-Raphael
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11-25-1911
Annya Serkovic “The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911 was a turning point for workers’ and women’s rights. Yet, the history of burning women continues to repeat itself. Made out of 11 x 11 squares of 25 different fabrics, this piece outlines the history of women, textiles, and burning through silkscreen printing.”
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CONDOR NEST LIVESTREAM #923 Eleonor Botoman
41 Slow rise of jawneckbellytalon shudders into the bald slant of pixeled sun. Fluffed leviathan exits nest rendered in 720p, a tab tucked between express-shipped checkout carts and chicken noodle recipes and snags of California precipice blanched bone-white by the sun’s eternity. Fledgling peeksover the crumbled claw of its first world with that child’s lack of fear lodged in the fragile down of its body. Mother, in her finest widow-black, teaches through unspooled organs and puddled meat. There is no warning. Wing-tendons are thrown open like curtains, splinters the lens with a crack of floodlight. Camera drops clean to cave floor. We are no witness to that first dive into bright air with gummed limbs, pink neck. Hyperlink slices the screen pitch-black with a flicker. Some other animal blinks back.
altamont, NY dodge city, KS pittsburgh, PA
Caroline Hunter Wallis
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Hannah Hungerford
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45 I would have known that blue sign anywhere. There it was, on the corner of St. Marks Place and 1st Avenue. Davey’s Ice Cream. From the outside, it doesn’t seem like much; the cute retro sign evokes the aesthetic past that the Lower East Side clings to as rents and buildings scratch at the surface of clouds. But inside there’s a hidden back room. I know because somewhere, perhaps now hung on the carefully cured wooden walls of that very room, there is a three-year-old photo of me and thirty other students crammed onto two picnic tables. In it, I am sticky. My legs had been sticky with sweat, my hands sticky with ice cream residue. I had been sticky, trying and failing to bathe away what clung tight. Three years ago, during my second ever finals season, spring was on the precipice of summer, tentatively dipping into a well of humidity and sun and never ending days. This was fortuitous for me, as my days were now beginning at 2 pm. I was trapped, I would say. Trapped by my only final, an in-person essay we could write in advance, scheduled for the last day of finals. Trapped in my freshman double, practically scratching at the walls to be free, longing to go home. Above all, trapped, for the first time, within my own flesh. It had happened on the first night of reading week, or maybe the second. The blurriness was the point, I guess. When time and social interaction melted into something else, and night became day and exams became sustenance. The details aren’t important. There was too much alcohol (not an excuse). There was too much touching (not an excuse). There were no’s (disregarded). There was crying in the hallway after (a temporary solution). There was an RA tentatively tiptoeing past, asking leading questions (but not enough of them). I woke up the next morning foggy and sticky and stuck. I went back to sleep. Evenings became my mornings. I would wake to see the gentle blue of a sky settling into dusk. And then: an invitation.
46 To an ice cream tour. A friend, a transfer new to Manhattan, had decided the key to the city was in finding its best ice cream. He had determined the select few that unlocked New York, transforming it from daunting city blocks into home. He would lead us to five locations, but would not reveal them to us beforehand. Wear walking shoes, he said. Bring a metro card with enough for a round trip. At least $10 cash. We would head downtown at 3 pm. It was early for me. There were thirty of us. Some friends. Some friends of friends. Others completely unknown, gathered from the eclectic nooks and crannies of the university. We rode in tentative excitement until we reached Chinatown. First stop: Chinatown Ice Cream Factory. We went up and down Manhattan, flirting with the Brooklyn Bridge as we traveled. Our guide walked almost a block in front of us, energized by the journey ahead. I saw neighborhoods new to me, train lines I didn’t know existed. I had only lived in New York for nine months. It had never opened itself to me before as it did then, esoteric blocks paving the way to the next destination. The thread of mystery, the thrill of guessing our next location, the sidewalk our feet practically skipped along — this was all, blessedly, I could focus on. And then our final stop. Davey’s Ice Cream. The scooper’s eyes had widened as we trekked in, swamping the previously empty store. The owner came out and we told him of our long journey. He was delighted, opening the back room for us, insisting on taking a photo as we squeezed into the picnic tables. Surrounded by equally exhausted and happy students, all of whom had put down books and laptops and control to be there, I felt a swell of possibility. For a moment, college was exactly as I had hoped. Manhattan was a land of treasures to be found. The night was no longer something to be scared of, necessitating later and later bedtimes to monitor it. The ice cream parlor was not a magical solution, or a healing potion. But it was a tentative first step.
47 And then I had forgotten to write down the name. I figured it was lost to the sands of time. Sometimes, I wondered if that sticky version of myself was still in that secret back room, sequestered away in a block of the Lower East Side that had only been a mirage. But, on a cold spring afternoon, nearly three years later, there it was. It still looked modest. It was, after all, just an ice cream parlor; in fact, it was part of a chain. How wonderful it is to see something you thought had been lost to the folds of New York. How similar it looked to the day that I had first passed through it. How beautiful it is when something you thought was lost forever returns just briefly to remind you of the nascent possibility contained within it. I contemplated going inside, reordering the scoop of chocolate chip I had once had, sitting at the picnic table. But the magic in a chance encounter resides in the chance. I didn’t want to tempt fate, make stilted small talk with a new scooper, question the absurdity of eating a scoop of ice cream in 20 degree weather. Instead, under the cold blue sky, I scribbled down “Davey’s Ice Cream,” and walked down Saint Marks. It was time to go home.
48 Fake blood streaks down her cheeks Lily couldn’t scrub hard enough Groggy start to Saturday After a bloody mary Friday Celery stalk Thursday Halloweekend reminds her of a forgotten childhood: Peeing into a cup for dad to pass his test He rewarded her with greasy fries She cooks fresh veggies in lard for Lily Lily washes dishes Cassidy is a bacon egg and cheese vegetarian Gigi taught her to sit up straight, only kiss boys And pray before bed! But she slouches She uses the bidet on full blast She doesn’t do anything small Pregaming the Pap smear with vodka shots Lily will hold her hand as they swab Her inside She will squirm but Reward herself with a McDonalds Double cheeseburger fries Special sauce dripping to her elbows Lily will lick the McNuggets carton dry
CASSIE Genevieve Nemeth
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house dance 2
Kassia Karras
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Smoking Deer Man
Sachi Thomsen
Brawny Brittle Burnt
Stefani Shoreibah (left)
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ANDREWS, TEXAS
At the end of a long day can I breathe out the surveillance that runs through my veins? some days i can still feel the baptist heat chapping the skin under panty hose I refused to wear an exposing sun makes my sunday best fester so I watch angry polyester curl in on itself now, scrubbing my skin too hard in the shower I can feel the remnants of little towns I’ve never been to wondering what little girls find confined solace from proverbs echoing off the edges of a velvet pew I think of grandad’s humble, holy beginnings, are they still with me when I walk briskly her hand in mine, our sinful breath dispersing too quickly, mist I can’t catch?
Marion Gibson
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Bits and Pieces
Chloe Zhang
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Antonia Holton-Raphael
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I tried the lemon Danish & carried the pink rock around. Tried on my old cross. Let a button on my trench coat hang by a thread. Popped a button on my roommate’s mom’s blazer. Cussed. Ate several mints before the haddock. Ate several mints after the haddock. Scolded a cousin for calling someone a fag. Ignored him when he did it again. Told my uncle’s new wife I get migraines too. Texted a friend, “I’m really glad you’re going to rehab.” Read Robert Burns in my room & listened to people laugh downstairs. Climbed in bed a little after midnight.
HOW I GRIEVED Virginia Ambeliotis
2/17/2019; revised 3/12/2019
EDITORIAL BOARD
Nora Foutty Editor-in-Chief
Aliyah Simon-Felix Submissions Manager
Claire Adler Reading Panel Coordinator
Arianna Shooshani Layout Assistant
Aurian Carter Layout Director Ruchi Shah Treasurer
READING PANEL Lila Etter Lucia O'Brien Gustie Owens
Angela Tran Jessenia Puma Marie Papazian
Supported in part by the Arts Initiative at Columbia University.
