Keith King Memorial ...........................................................................................................pages

The Stars Were Enough

Cassidy Wong

A meteor shower tonight, said my dad It was late Late enough that the fluorescent of my room Long replaced the light between my blinds Casting odd shadows onto the clutter A pandemic left in its wake

Leaving it behind, I pad out to the driveway Only in t-shirt and shorts December winds breezing past Toes shivering against biting gravel

First, I look Nothing looks back Above is expectedly black

But then a dot of light flickers Saturn Her ringlets glistening A primadonna

Another and another and another flit into view Not waiting expectantly for a finale The troupes of constellations are content with their own show Debuting on unusually clear night, perfect for staring

Standing on the driveway, in a jacket this time Bouncing from one foot to another A frenzied dance halted only by the view

Stars multiply two fold Five fold Ten fold I am reminded that it’s been ages, years even that I’ve looked at them like this

All the tiny pieces coming to make a mosaic of holes in the darkness, light out pouring “Are they always like this?” I asked. “Probably, but we’re never out here to see it.”

We waited for till our toes turned ice in the night air Soon, in the wake of starry multitudes Prospects of a meteor shower were left Forgotten

Taking a step back I realize each moment, each day only snapshots of the world’s biggest collage. Stars dotting our night sky as Millions of single instances that dot out landscape Not a prelude to some grand shower of light For the presence of the parts themselves serve as the culmination

A metaphor both all encompassing but small enough to be held in a sentence. Like the meteor shower though, It will never come and it doesn’t have to For there are a million little ones In friendly glances in the halls In the zoom calls, hearts connected through laughter In masks we wear, and try to smile through In the space we give others, not out of disgust, but respect In the little buds, Growing persistent In spite of the December winds that threaten to flatten them In every star, helping us realize that we are part of something bigger

In the realization that through it all, The world will come to heal.

That night I learned the solace in the present That though this world isn’t a poem There is beauty in its raw and indisputable Reality Built of a thousand moments Upon a thousand metaphors not captured by prose

Anyways, there was no meteor shower after all But the stars were enough.

an open letter to the bees

Kate-Yeonjae Joeng

please tell the bumble-buzzers my apologies / but in the meantime, i shall / strum a harmonica and summon the slow elven dancers, prune shrubs / intertwined in wild figs and winery, indulge in the sting / of beetle-bee and twang.

when the dust bunnies lilt / from sundown’s shadows and lolly-snails slip into sepia, i’ll caress / empty air. when the sniffling mice / teeter on bare branches, i’ll fall through thunder. when the star-facing flowers wilt in curvature and butterflies flutter like / wisps, i’ll strike / the hollow earth in an epiphany

all whilst rushing / amidst scattered eggshells of / a weeping robin.

My Mothers Magnolia

Maryam Anwar

My mother once told me That with the bloom of every flower Comes passion Purity, ¨much like you, my magnolia.¨

I just wish she had told me That life isn’t kind to pure souls. Purity is seen as a flaw.

My head swirls with burdening and self destructive thoughts Too many to oversee, as much as I wish to repress. So I write them down Obsessively. Others praise those words in black ink, As if they are worth something, anything. But I know I will never see it the way they do Because I’m just a girl with a pen, paper, And a desperate mind eating itself from the inside out.

People view me as a painting, They admire, they criticize. With that, My mother´s precious magnolia withers Bringing fragility As the last petal falls.