Leland Quarterly Vol. 14, Issue 1: Fall 2019 by Leland Quarterly

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LELAND QUARTERLY VOLUME 14, ISSUE 1: Fall 2019

EDITORS IN CHIEF Olivia Manes Linda Ye MANAGING EDITORS Lily Nilipour Zuyi Zhao FINANCIAL OFFICER

Elizabeth Dunn

OUTREACH DIRECTOR

Wyatt Leaf

EDITORIAL STAFF Angela Yang (Fiction) Lily Zhou (Poetry) Andrew Lin (Nonfiction) FICTION STAFF Ember Fu Nicolle Hendzel Jo Leuenberger Abigail Schweizer Sharon Tran Zoe Wallace Sylvia Yuan

POETRY STAFF Karen Ge Malia Maxwell Miranda Liu Caitlin Nockideneh Anushree Thekkedath Tom Worth Camellia Ye NONFICTION STAFF Adriana Carter Tanvi Gupta Carolyn Stein LAYOUT STAFF Miranda Liu Olivia Manes Malia Maxwell Lily Nilipour Angela Yang Linda Ye Sylvia Yuan

Leland Quarterly | Fall 2019

Untitled (Water closeup) Catherine Wang

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EDITOR’S NOTE This quarter we’ve had the privilege of working with a motivated staff that is deeply invested in the Arts community here at Stanford. Through their hard work, we’ve been able to collaborate with our talented contributors, sift through the numerous high-quality submissions we’ve received, and make tough decisions regarding the finalized publication. Though we’ve had our fair share of challenges, the tireless work of our editorial staff has made these challenges more than worthwhile. We’d like to give a special thank you to Lily Nilipour for her time and generosity in helping us navigate the publication layout process, as well as to Zuyi Zhao for her continued support. A warm thank you to Angela Yang, Lily Zhou, and Andrew Lin for helping bring this vision to life. And of course, a huge thank you to our talented contributors. We are proud to be a part of such a vibrant, thoughtful, and hardworking community of artists and writers. The Leland Quarterly would not be possible without you. We are incredibly excited about what this year will bring for the Leland Quarterly.

Olivia Manes, Co-Editor in Chief Linda Ye, Co-Editor in Chief

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CONTENTS Poetry Rhythm of Summer, Kelsey Urban 9 A WRITER’S FRIEZE, Keona Blanks 10 African Diaspora, Saray Bedoya 11 Her Palm, Fatima Karim 22 The cavalcade is coming, Zoe Mahony 32 Fading, Kelsey Urban 33 Poetry by Corazon Johnson 34 Pieta of Chartres Street Wrought South Red Tails Black Skin To All the Socks I’ve Lost While Doing Laundry, Darnell Carson 40 Who Knows, Maya Mahony 42 breath like persimmons, Angeline Truong 43 The Future, Thomas White 47 The sun’s cloak, Linda Liu 48 Nereid’s Sac, Ember Fu 50

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Prose Sunday, Zach Lo 12 Winter in Las Vegas, Jacob Langsner 20 Fever, Sam Waddoups 24 Madam President, Cynthia Mchechu 38

Visual Arts Untitled (Water closeup), Catherine Wang 3 Untitled (Caltrain station cafe with plants), Catherine Wang 8 Untitled (Stanford H.G. Will Center in Berlin), Catherine Wang 19 Untitled, Saray Bedoya 23 Archimedes Solids or The Passage from Virgin to Bride, Kyle Cromer 28 ExpĂŠrience de la CuriositĂŠ No. 3, Matt Metias 37 In Fifteen Minutes Everyone Will Be Famous, Kyle Cromer 46 Life Like Weeds, no.2, Kyle Cromer 49

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Untitled (Caltrain station cafe with plants) Catherine Wang

Leland Quarterly | Fall 2019

Rhythm of Summer

Kelsey Urban These summer nights drip melt into empty seconds hours minutes indistinguishable and excruciating, punctuated only by the rain filtered light from the six window bedroom with all the blinds drawn. It is all stillness until the moon changes, thrusts me into wind-up toy movement, unclogging coffee grounds from the sink, refilling the hummingbird feeder thunder dodging, sweeping aspen pollen from under the door, readjusting to loneliness. With the full moonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s arrival, I cut off all my hair as if the change could startle monsoon season into shutting her slowly descending palm to finally bring the sky to crackle then close.

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A WRITER’S FRIEZE

Keona Blanks THE greats gazed down on me with stolid eyes from their plastered display above the busy bookstore, beckoning. Beckoning me to join them at their round table in the smoke-filled café To join them in their capturing of the color of the luster of generations of the past\ /of those to come Perhaps one day I’ll earn myself a worn chair at their worn table, an etched “Blanks” printed below my own pensive figure, poised between Shaw and Dickinson by a frieze artist’s brush.

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African Diaspora

Saray Bedoya

They celebrate and dance to the beating drum Their gleaming skin screaming black and free That same night skin, unaware for what’s to come, As cruel paper whites transport them through sea Sickness and sweat sweep the barbarous barred brown gh A chance to escape but behind— long lost relatives, Green luscious Latino lands encompass their soul Spanish syllables roll off their tongues— decorative Now their presence lives immortally among us—a great impact, Vibrant culture varied shades of afro gold, My heart reflects the beating of the drum and their spirit—intact, My blackness their suffering and my spanish tongue their triumphs untold I carry the immeasurable tears and sweat of my people in my blood As well as the taste of plátano maduro on my untamed tongue

Leland Quarterly | Fall 2019

Sunday

Zach Lo

I unlocked the door to my mother’s house with my own key. She hadn’t wanted me to have one for a long time after my dad died, mostly because she didn’t want me to worry about her. We argued about it for months before she gave in. I tried to convince her to move out, too, at first. It was such a big house, but all the rooms were always empty. It reminded me of a museum, like one of those houses where they arrange the furniture so it looks like someone just got up and left a hundred years ago and never came back. I knew my mother must have been lonely. We first argued about it after my dad’s funeral, four— no, five— years ago. We were standing in a corner of the kitchen while all these people I didn’t know crept around us and whispered. My mother was wearing a long black dress fastened up at her throat. “You always stress,” she said. “If you come here, you stress me out, too.” She looked like she was made up of all sharp edges, like the stained glass figures in the church. I was afraid to get too close to her. “It’s about your safety,” I told her. “If you’re going to live alone, someone needs to be able to check on you.” “I do fine alone,” she said. “I know,” I said. “But what if something happens? You could have an accident or something.” “And you come save me?” she said. “What are you going to do?” “You could just let me have one,” I said. “There’s no reason not to. It would make me feel better, just to have it.” “We talk about it later,” she said. She walked away. I think she knew I didn’t want to argue with her in front of all those people. We finally did get the key made, but because she was so stubborn I promised that I wouldn’t visit without telling her first. Sometimes that made things hard; she liked to give excuses. It would be too hot or she would have a doctor’s appointment. I still felt like someone had to try to see her, at least. Like that day, Sunday, we were going to get lunch.

Leland Quarterly | Fall 2019

So I unlocked the door with my own key, and I took my shoes off and stood in the entryway. “Mom?” I called. “Mom?” There was no answer. I walked over and looked into the kitchen, which was still ugly. All the appliances were made of white plastic and there was an empty Tupperware sitting on the counter, stained with some kind of brown sauce. I went and put it in the sink. I looked out the window in case she was in the backyard, but there was just grass and the big oak tree I always tried to climb when I was a kid. My mother hated it; she always told me not to because I would get dirty. I walked out of the kitchen, and I thought maybe she was upstairs, so I went over to the bottom of the staircase and listened. I could hear the sounds of people talking on TV. I went up. “Mom,” I called. The television got quieter. “Jenny?” she said. “Hi,” I said. I got to the top of the stairs and went into her bedroom. She was sitting in her big armchair and watching a Chinese game show, but when she saw me she stood up stiffly. She was wearing these old Nike sweatpants and a bright blue fleece sweater which must have been at least two sizes too big for her, all bunched up around her sides. “Oh,” she said. “You’re early.” “It’s lunchtime,” I said. “Are you ready to go?” “Let me find my purse,” she said. She went over to the closet and started digging through things. I looked around the room. The blinds were closed so the sunlight just poked in through little slots and there was a plate on the bedside table. It was sticky with the same sauce from the kitchen. I picked it up. My mother turned around with her purse. She saw me holding the plate and frowned. “Oh,” she said. “I forgot to wash that. Let me have it.” She took the plate and we walked downstairs. At the bottom she went to put away the plate while I put on my shoes. When she came back we went to get in the car. Outside of the house she looked even tinier in her blue fleece. “Where’d you get that fleece?” I asked her. “It was in the closet,” she said. “It’s comfortable.” I didn’t say anything else. We were driving to this Asian fusion place downtown that I had

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heard was good. My mother lives in Redemption, where we grew up, a little town that isn’t very far from Chapel Hill, but it’s small enough that it feels like nowhere. It’s mostly just empty fields and patches of brown pine trees, and what we called downtown was just a street with a little sidewalk and some restaurants. There were never any good Chinese places really, but I thought that maybe if the new place was good we could go there more. I looked over at my mother. She had put on her big sunglasses, ridiculous ones with these thick black plastic frames, and she was just watching the road. “Do you have to wear those sunglasses?” I said. “I feel like I can’t even see your face.” “They protect my skin,” she said. She was right, it was a bright day. The sun was up over the trees and it was shining hard and white on the road. I had to squint to see where I was going. “Did you go to church this morning?” I asked her. She didn’t answer me for a second, and I thought maybe she didn’t hear me, but then she turned her head a little bit. “No,” she said. “I don’t really go anymore. It’s a long walk.” It wasn’t that long of a walk, probably only ten minutes or maybe fifteen if you went slowly. I knew because she would make me and my brother go with her every Sunday. She bought me terrible dresses, frilly and strange faded colors like old dolls’ clothes, and made us sit perfectly still during the service. We would always go to the picnics afterwards, too. We would stand together in the grass and eat potato salad and sweat under the sun. My mother wore a giant white sun hat and hiss at me to stand up straight, and then after, she threatened us with the wrath of God if we didn’t listen to our teachers. I don’t think she even believed in God. I thought that if she wouldn’t even walk to church these days then there was certainly no reason for her to live in such a big house. “Don’t the other ladies miss you?” I asked. “They’re annoying,” she said. “They always ask if I need anything.” “They’re just trying to be nice,” I said. She didn’t say anything back. I tried to think of things to tell her about. “Grace is spending this summer in Shanghai,” I said. “She’s really excited. Cornell has a place

Sunday | Zach Lo

for them to stay and everything.” Grace is my younger daughter, she was a sophomore at Cornell. “Why does she want to go to China?” said my mother. “She hasn’t been to China except for once,” I said. “I don’t think she remembers a lot.” I thought about it. “How come you and Dad never took us to China?” I said. “Too much money,” she said. “And no point.” I wanted to say that my daughter thought there was some point. But I just kept driving until we got to the restaurant and pulled over. “This is it,” I said. We got out and walked inside. Everything was made of dark wood panels and white plastic, and there were big soft lights on the walls like the kind they put in hotels. “Hi,” I told the hostess. “Two.” She took us over to a little table right next to the window and we sat down. In the booth next to us was this middle-aged white woman with two young kids. One of them looked at me with really big sad eyes while he sucked on a chopstick. He had sauce on his face. I looked away. A man came up with two glasses of water and asked if we knew what we wanted. I told him just a minute and he left. “Do you know what you want?” I asked my mother. She was frowning at the menu. “I thought this was Chinese,” she said. “It’s fusion,” I said. “It’s kind of Chinese. I heard it was good.” She looked around. “When did it open?” “A couple of weeks ago, I think,” I said. “It’s too expensive,” she said. “Why do you always spend so much money?” “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I’ll pay for it.” “No,” she said. She closed her menu and set it down. “It’s too expensive.” She got her sunglasses out of her purse and put them on. “You could just try it,” I said. I was trying not to talk too loudly. I wished she would lower her voice. “We go somewhere else,” she said. “It’s rude to just leave.” She was standing up now, but I didn’t want to stand up because then I would just have to follow her out. She

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hesitated. I thought maybe she would sit back down, but she shook her head. “We find a better place.” The little boy next to us with the chopstick was staring at us with his mouth open. I wanted to tell him to turn around and eat and not stare at strangers. I don’t know what his mother was doing. “Fine,” I said. “Let’s go.” I got up and we walked out. “Sorry,” I told the hostess. “We’re not very hungry right now.” It was the best lie I could think of. I was never a good liar. Outside my mother started walking down the street, away from the car. “Where are we going?” I asked her. “I don’t know,” she said backwards over her shoulder. “We find somewhere else. You find somewhere less expensive.” There were some other restaurants down the street, even if they weren’t Chinese, so I kept walking after her. I hadn’t been down that way in a long time. There were a bunch of new stores. We passed a deli and a pizza place with some long name in Italian. I thought maybe I should ask my mother if she wanted to stop but I thought she would probably tell me when she wanted to. “What are you looking for?” I said. “A good place to eat,” she said. I was getting frustrated. She just kept walking and walking. We were starting to get to the end of the street, and the storefronts were getting farther and farther apart. “I think we passed all the restaurants,” I said. “If you want to go somewhere we should go back to the car.” “You took me here,” she said. “You pick where we go.” She was walking fast. “There aren’t any places left,” I said. “We need to go back.” “I’m not hungry.” “Okay,” I said. I looked around. We were walking on the side of the road and all the stores were way behind us. There was a big field off to the right and a dark green line of trees at the horizon. “Let’s just stop here and we can sit until you want to go get something.” She stopped and turned around. “Fine,” she said after a second. We sat down in the grass, which was tough and sharp. It was getting

Sunday | Zach Lo

hot, too. I was starting to sweat and I wished we had stopped somewhere with more shade. But I knew my mother wasn’t going to move. “Okay,” I said. “We’ll just sit here.” She didn’t say anything. She was running her hands through the grass like a little kid. I was trying to think of more to say but nothing seemed right. “You know,” I said eventually. “I was talking to Amy. Amy from high school. And her parents just moved into this great place out in Hawes Valley. It’s not a home or anything, they have their own apartment and everything. It’s just part of a neighborhood. A gated community. And there’s a gym with a pool, and restaurants.” My mother stopped touching the grass. She sat very still. “It sounds really nice,” I said. “I thought you might want to look at it.” There was a long pause. “You think I should move out,” said my mother eventually. She wasn’t looking at me, but I knew it wasn’t a question. “It is a really big house,” I said. “And it’s just you.” “You’re telling me what I should do?” she said. “I just don’t want you to feel lonely,” I said. “I want you to be in a place where people can take care of you.” “Take care of me,” she said. She shaped the words carefully with her lips like she was just learning them for the first time. “No, that’s not it,” I said. I leaned back on my hands and tried to find the right words. “Just a place where there are people you can talk to. Or be with.” “I don’t need to be with people.” “It’s important to be social,” I said. I knew that wasn’t it either. “I wasn’t ever very social,” she said. She kept moving her head, looking up and down the road again and again. “It was hard to get to know the ladies here. We are very different.” “Sure,” I said. “Yeah.” “I’m used to it,” she said. “Okay,” I said. “I know. But it just, I don’t like it. It feels wrong for you to be alone.” “You always stress about me,” she said. “Why don’t I decide?”

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“I’m letting you decide,” I said. “It’s your decision. I just think maybe you don’t see everything. Or see how it looks. To me.” I was scared, I didn’t know why. I had to remind myself I was holding onto the grass. “I see how it looks to you,” she said. She turned and looked at me finally, but I still couldn’t see anything through her sunglasses, just my own face reflected in the lenses. I was surprised by how old I looked. I thought maybe the light was getting in my eyes. “I don’t know if you do,” I said. I looked around at the field we were in and at the big trees behind us. I thought about how much my mother hated it when I climbed trees. I remembered this one time when I was really little, five or six maybe, playing in the backyard. It was that time of day when the sun has already gone down but the air is still light. There was a boy there, named Henry I think, from down the block. He pointed to our oak tree. It looked bigger than anything I’d ever seen. “We can get to the top,” he said. The two of us ran over to the bottom of the tree. I put my feet in the fork near the ground and I put both of my hands against the trunk. I swayed a little bit. I imagined my mother’s voice telling me not to get dirty, but when I started climbing higher, I forgot about her. I just kept climbing until the branches were so thin I could feel them shaking. It felt like the whole tree was shaking. I don’t remember how I got back down. I wanted to tell my mother about that, but I didn’t know how. I imagined how scared Jesus must have been up there on the cross, with everything ending. I wanted to ask her if she believed in God. “Can you take off your glasses?” I said. “I feel like I can’t see you.” I didn’t really know if it would make a difference. She didn’t say anything. I reached out and took them off. Her eyes didn’t look like anything I’d ever seen before. She looked afraid. My skin was tingling, and I thought about how she washed me before church until I kicked and screamed. She wanted me to be reborn. She wanted to save me. I felt like if she touched me, I might break into a thousand pieces of stained glass.

Leland Quarterly | Fall 2019

Untitled (Stanford H.G. Will Center in Berlin) Catherine Wang

Leland Quarterly | Fall 2019

Winter in Las Vegas

Jacob Langsner

Summer crumbles overnight. Autumn is a fairytale. You wake to feel the heat ripped off like gauze on a cut you didn’t notice. The cold makes a beeline down the gash to sink in naked bone. There’s warmth, but it’s trapped between your sheets. When you push off the covers, you’ll have to let it go. It’s only as warm as the best memories of an exlover, and the longer you live in it, the harder it is to move on. Outside, it’s not just cold. It’s serrated. Breath hits your upper lip and cuts like skis carve ice. But no snow, of course— it’s still the desert. Here, the frost is woven in the roads. It sleeps in trees, curled tight within the bark. The world is sharpened like the first time you see your favorite movie in high definition. The picture’s too crisp, and a thousand new lines destroy the fantasy. At a stoplight, a homeless man shivers. He sits on the curb and rocks in a stiff ballet with passing cars. His breath is indistinguishable from the exhaust. It pools in sour fog around a neon sign of a cowboy on horseback. The bronco gallops nowhere in the rotten mist, and fading clouds of breath and gas catch the light’s color. It holds the neon glow like condensation, and velvet red rains across the homeless man’s back. Scarlet soaks his rags. For a second, the glow looks like heat. Skin touched with hollow warmth. In the hotel behind him, you could pay a masseuse for the same experience. Across the street, a photographer sets up his tripod. He drinks something hot while he works, but the clean steam doesn’t mix. In this world, he’s water on oil. From the depths of a down jacket, the man takes a picture of the neon cowboy. His lens is long, which means the shot is tight. He’ll only get the sign, and the blue sky behind it. In a split second, the rest falls on you. The light turns green, and the portrait of a freezing man is lost unless you take it. You hit the gas and hope to God he’s watching. As the car rolls forward, the whole thing suddenly feels like a matter of life and death. Your heart starts to beat in the terrified rhythm that only plays in the shadow of a real death. If you don’t see him, no one will.

Leland Quarterly | Fall 2019

You lock eyes in the rear-view mirror. It’s a miracle that melts the ice just long enough to exhale. You want to stop and shout I see you!You want to beg, before you freeze again, for him to say he’s seen you too. But you keep driving. The homeless man crumbles like summer, and you took his picture. Trampled under glowing hooves. And in return, you left exhaust. You go to class, and the sun rises. High school in Vegas has its perks, and walking down the strip for lunch never gets old. But even as the sun climbs, the city doesn’t thaw. Now, it’s just bright and cold. The whole town is an overexposed photograph. You walk into a coffee shop, let your eyes adjust, and freeze. There’s the photographer. He orders a drink and smiles at the woman behind the counter. She smiles back, and he avoids her eyes. He asks the woman how she’s doing, and she says, chilly, but never better! He nods, brushes by you, and leaves to frame the town as warm for anyone who’s not stuck in it.

Leland Quarterly | Fall 2019

Her Palm

Fatima Karim My mom often tells me the story of how I was born Tells me that she didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think I would survive Small as I was The size of her palm Whenever she tells this story I feel like saying of course I did I come from a woman stronger than the mountains A woman so strong that she forgave her father for not loving her enough A woman who I often times find myself unable to forgive for loving me too much For holding me in her palm too tight Her grasp turning into a death noose A woman who may never forgive me for being who I am My mom reads the news And asks me if Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m okay If the fire reached me Tells me to be careful of those americans With their guns and their hate And their liberalism My mom reads the news About pride month and lgbt rights And asks if Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m okay Tells me to be careful of those americans With their gayness and their homosexuality And their lesbians And I tell her I am I lie

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Because what else am I to say That I am too big to fit in her world That I have outgrown her box That I am no longer her little girl Small as I was The size of her palm But still her daughter My mom is larger than life Her voice the loudest thunderclap Her hips the deepest valley And yet Yet Her palm is too small for me to fit in

Untitled Saray Bedoya

Leland Quarterly | Fall 2019

Fever

Sam Waddoups 1976 +0.9° F

No one noticed when the fever began. In the middle of Watergate and the energy crisis, no one stopped to take their temperature. Whenever he complained, Bill’s mother would just tell him to suck it up and go to school: a tradition passed down every time someone forgets what it’s like to be young and sick for the first time. “I’m sick,” Bill creaked when his mother came to wake him up. “Is that true, or is that what you want to be true?” She replied, hiding a smile. She felt his forehead. “You’re a little warm, but it’s almost nothing.” Bill’s head hurt. He shivered under his plaid bedspread, and looked at the blank wall. Pulling the blanket up past his ears and wrapping it tight around him, he promised to himself he’d always believe his children when they told him they were sick. He swore it on his prized ceramic turtle. He’d inherited it from his grandfather, when all the kids could go through his quiet house and pick one object to remember him by. It was the oldest thing Bill owned. Bill’s mother came back into his room. “You’re still not up? Come on, no whining!” She turned on his bedside lamp and returned to the hall, leaving his door open behind her. Bill swung his feet onto the floor, still wrapped in his bedspread. By the time he got to school, he had forgotten his symptoms, and by the end of the week, he had forgotten he had a fever in the first place. Around the world, everyone had forgotten their fever, too.

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1996 +1.6° F Bill sat down at the table, squeezing in between two cousins’ chairs. Over the decades of family reunions, the differences between each of them had become more exaggerated, but somehow they still felt like family. Maybe it was because even after 20 years, they still got sunburned on the boat and played kids’ games for hours when it rained. He grinned as he looked around the table. It was one of the places he felt truly at home. “Wait, where’s Jackson and Isaac? Aren’t they coming?” Bill asked. “Oh, um, Jackson is going to Dave Matthews Band with some friends this week, right?,” one cousin replied as he set up the stack of Jenga blocks on the table. “Isaac has work, he said he might come on Sunday but he’s not sure,” another said. “Come on,” Bill said. “What?” “I just wish they’d come even with whatever going on. It’s our only time together,” Bill said. “I guess,” his cousin said, glancing away. Bill put his plate in his lap. His cousins absent-mindedly removed pieces from the Jenga tower with their eyes on the TV in the corner. “What are they doing now, track and field?” Bill asked. “Why aren’t they in the stadium?” “Marathon,” his cousin replied. “It’s almost over.” Bill held his breath and pulled a piece out from in front of him. They turned up the TV. The announcers blathered on. “… recent performances have been, ah, less than impressive. So we’ve seen lots of pressure on technique this year to get the long-overdue recordbreaking performance from these athletes. This race is sure to be one for the ages, and we can see in the lead…” A South African, a Kenyan, and a Korean ran in a triangle. They’d just entered downtown Atlanta.

Leland Quarterly | Fall 2019

Sweat dripped from their faces, but all were unreadable through their sunglasses. The Korean’s right leg gave way, and he stumbled to continue moving forward, fading behind the other two. His legs fought invisible resistance, painstakingly slow as he willed his feet to drag forward. His steps shortened and shortened. His legs bowed. He fell to the pavement. The other runners looked behind them, but inertia and years of training took them forward, away from his body. “Does this usu—” Bill’s cousins shushed him. All eyes went to the screen. The camera stuttered between capturing the slowly-crawling Korean and the frontrunners. The South African and the Kenyan entered the stadium, side by side. 400 meters remaining. They both slowed in parallel, and the Kenyan veered slowly to the left, legs crossing in an elaborate bow, until finally falling in slow motion. The South African, dazed, continued forward, but couldn’t round the corner. He tripped off into the grass. The screen cut to the empty entrance to the stadium. No racers came from behind to finish. The camera zoomed out. Both runners were panting, sweating, writhing on the ground. One clutched his chest and yelped. Bill’s cousin pushed out a piece from the tower. It wobbled. The announcers blathered on, theorizing. It must have been the heat, or the hills, they said. Or bad lungs— one of the runners had been a coal miner, another lived in a polluted city. Olympic history, they said. A testament to the historic challenge of the marathon. At the end of the first marathon, the runner died. This was nothing new. Eventually someone got back up, hobbled forward, and won. The broadcast continued into the night. The medics said that all the runners had low fevers, but that it was within the margin of error. Thermometers were unreliable lately, anyway. If anything, it was from fatigue. Bill got up from the table, and accidentally hit it with his hip. The bare-bone wooden tower fell in a clatter. Everyone groaned. Bill drifted out of the room, over to the stacks of paper plates and Wonder bread, and joined the kitchen conversation. His uncles were disagreeing with his grandma about some childhood memory.

Fever | Sam Waddoups

2019 +2.9° F “Sophia, while you’re up, could you grab the San Pellegrino?” Bill asked from the table. Sophia wandered over, pulled her phone from the charger at the kitchen island, and swung the bottle of sparkling water at her side. She stopped for a second and looked at her phone. “And wine?” Sophia asked. “Later.” Bill replied. “You want some too? Oh sure, wait-- how old are you again?” “Dad,” Sophia deadpanned. “No, tell me, I forgot. Are you twenty-one already?” “Dad.” Bill laughed. “No, we’re fine without it for now. I know, college, whatever, there’s nothing you haven’t seen, but for my sake.” Sophia smiled and put her phone back in her pocket. She looked over her dad’s shoulder. “Oh my God, Dad, you still watch the news?” “What? Anything wrong with being informed?” “No, I mean, it’s just, aren’t there easier ways of getting your information? You don’t get tired of, like, the ads, or a story you’re bored with and just want to end, that kind of stuff?” “I guess it’s just how I was raised. Can you turn the volume on? Wait, nevermind, I got it.” He got out of his chair with a deep grunt, grimaced as he stood, and walked over to turn on the volume. His bones ached. The house always felt too warm, or too cold. If this was what old age was like, he thought, he didn’t want to live so long. Just long enough to get Sophia off and into the world, to see her starting her own family. The anchors began talking. One was yelling, but the person on the other side of the split screen still couldn’t hear him. The anchors were talking about the #burningup movement, denouncing the scientists as catastrophists and praising the fever deniers. “Have you heard about this?” Bill asked, gesturing at the screen with his fork.

Leland Quarterly | Fall 2019

The support systems that make modern human life possible—cities, patios, bedrooms, airplanes—are indirectly biological because we have created them as an extension of ourselves. It is no surprise then that manmade objects essentially have the same needs we do—nutrient acquisition, temperature regulation, and waste removal. When viewed in this way, it becomes clear that a woman in a living room is largely analogous to the nucleus of a cell sitting comfortably within its lipid bilayer membrane—as a hermit crab in a conch.

Archimedean Solids or The Passage from Virgin to Bride Kyle Cromer

Fever | Sam Waddoups

“Yeah, I mean, it’s a thing,” Sophia replied. “I guess so,” he said, “But you know, it’s hard to back up the story. The margin of error is pretty high, and body temperature fluctuates naturally, anyway. The doctors say there’s not much to be worried about.” “Have you read what people are saying, though? That it’s a crisis in developing countries, not to mention low-income neighborhoods?” “Sophia, those places are already messed up, there are always health crises in inner cities.” “On this level, though? And with no other symptoms?” He put his fork down and set it on his plate. “OK, let me put it this way, Soph. Do you have a ‘burning up’ problem?” he asked, making quote signs with his hands. “Well, no, but--” “Do you know anyone who does?” “Of course! They’re all over the inter—” “No, I mean, really know, in person, at school, that kind of thing.” “That’s not fair.” “I don’t feel anything, you don’t either. Do you know this is true, or do you just want it to be?” “Dad, how am I going to find someone with this problem? We have air conditioned houses, air conditioned cars, clean water, health care, it would hardly affect anyone! Go to, go to Alabama, go to Flint, go to Colombia, it’s a crisis!” “Look, you’re okay, right?” Sophia didn’t speak. “Are you alright?” “I’m fine, dad.” “That’s all you need to worry about. Our family’s fine, you’re alive, you’re well.” Sophia took a shallow breath. “OK.” She put her plate in the sink, pulled the wine out from the top cupboard, and left it on the table as she went upstairs.

Leland Quarterly | Fall 2019

2036 +4° F

Bill rang Sophia’s doorbell. His heart beat fast. He was sweating. He heard a squeal behind the door, then a rustling, and the door swung open. She beamed at her dad, then down at the baby wrapped in her arms. “Hi!” They hugged carefully around the baby between them. “Do you want to hold her?” “Can I?” “Here you go. You just, you just put your arm like this, and—” The baby nestled in the crook of his elbow. “Carmen.” He sighed. He re-accustomed himself to the weight of a baby in his arms. It was lighter than he remembered. The last time he had held Sophia, she was much heavier than this. A long time ago. They entered in her cluttered apartment, and sat down, the couch sliding them together in the worn out cushions. “Can you believe it?” he said. “Three generations.” “Who’d have thought?” Sophia murmured, her eyes staring into her daughter’s. Bill and Sophia sat. They leaned in to the baby. They breathed. They ruffled her new hair, touched her new skin, kissed her little fingers. The three most recent steps of their generations’ marathon. She was too hot. Her cheeks were flushed. She began to cry. “Oh, I’m sorry, it’s not you, it’s—” Sophia reached over and smoothly took Carmen back, rhythmically shushing “How’s she holding up?” Bill asked quietly. “It’s been hard, you know. There’s no way to get her temperature down. It’s the same as everyone.” “Did you read that—” “I’ve read everything at this point. I’ve accepted it, there’s nothing we can do.” As she spoke, Carmen’s eyes rolled back. Her arms and legs shuddered, and then the shaking intensified. Small movements to them, but how big they must be to Carmen. Sophia scooped her up and took her to the bedroom. “I’m sorry.”

Fever | Sam Waddoups

“It’s okay.” Bill waited tensely on the couch, half ready to follow her to the room, and then sank back into his seat. His head throbbed. He heard the thumping from behind the door. His joints screeched beneath his skin. He picked up the gift bag he had brought for Carmen, and slowly took out its contents. Bill felt the weight of the ceramic turtle in his hand. He knew it wouldn’t mean anything to her yet, but he felt like it was important. He gripped it by its shell and walked towards the bedroom. Sophia lay sideways on the bed with her back to the door. As Bill approached, he saw that she was shielding Carmen, her curved body surrounding the baby like a narrow cove, a safe harbor. The floor creaked, but Sophia didn’t react. “Is she going to be okay?” Bill asked, his posture hunched and tentative. “I don’t know,” Sophia replied. In her gentle nest, Carmen’s shaking stopped, and the crying resumed. Bill’s eyes burned. Sophia shivered. “Are you going to be okay?” Bill sat down on the edge of the bed. Sophia rolled onto her back, now parallel to her daughter, both staring at the ceiling fan. Carmen wailed. Sophia closed her eyes. “I don’t know, Dad. I don’t know.”

Leland Quarterly | Fall 2019

The cavalcade is coming

Zoe Mahony In the evening, the red-tipped mountains watch horses flick mosquitoes from sweaty flanks. Come fill the old millhouse with straw so the children of the new war can sleep. Tell them stories of men who stay home, take special pride in their tomato plants, and donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t even kill the spiders. The cavalcade is coming. Find the gun your father hid amid the ugly sheets that were a wedding gift from an old friend with bad taste. In the garden, pull up the flowers. Plant potatoes and beans. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s really nothing like the beautiful war nurse and soldier. I lied about the horses, and the straw, and the mill. The cavalcade is nothing but a thousand streaks through a night sky, shiny as spilled oil, piloted by men who play videogames for a living and watch MTV in their Arizona ranch houses. The children are real though.

Leland Quarterly | Fall 2019

Fading

Kelsey Urban Morning & the mountains still stained blue, layered like ribs grown in all wrong. I haven’t been here for a week, let alone long enough to watch the seasons change, which is to say I can’t tell you when the windows fogged. If you squint just so, you can make out the fly congregation assembling in front of the screen, as they do every morning, bobbing buoys, conveying coded messages to the insect world. I burn my throat on too— hot coffee, set the mug to the side, watch the morning light chase the steam spirals away. I’m trying to feel grateful for two weeks off work, but mostly, I feel the sweaty hands deep inside my stomach reaching for more, more, more. Fourteen days is a long time for those who know how to leave. The trouble is I never learned how so I wind up here, trying to speak arthropod, halfway gone.

Leland Quarterly | Fall 2019

Pieta of Chartres Street

Corazon Johnson

This first piece was inspired by a local photographer Josephine Sacabo’s collection, Barking at God: Retablos Mundanos, in which she was inspired by a favorite Brazilian author of hers, Clarice Lispector. Specifically, she was inspired by one quote that had embedded itself into her mind. “All that’s left for me to do is bark at God.” The pieces are hand-colored photogravures combining the graffiti of New Orleans with religious imagery from San Miguel, Mexico. She describes it as the dueling iconographies of the two places [she] call[s] home. You all should really go see her work it’s beautiful. This following piece is a direct response to one piece in particular, of which it shares a name.

New Orleans fencing crosses the milk jaws of una santa en un mural de una iglesia Mexicana— La santa is defiled somewhere in San Miguel marked by wounded niños scarring walls for attention, for penance... this painful art of barking at God. Escriben hermosas palabras de fiebre alimentada por rosas deformadas. on walls above streets stinking of urine. Why must saints’ painted faces be weary? Pancaked powdered, a subdued Geisha. At the mantles of coarse roads capped and capped again with new cement blackening by flooding rain, the hounds of Earth don’t differ from Hell, they all bark and as for old roads, old like porcelain antique dolls glazed with cheap paint, do they ever fossilize... or do they turn senile como ideas viejas y rezos revisados and amended laws fencing the milk jaws de una santa, now too, barking at God.

Leland Quarterly | Fall 2019

Wrought South

Corazon Johnson

This next piece was inspired by a permanent exhibit at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. A painted wood construction created in 1978, by a John T. Scott titled Butterfly Pin-Up.

Simmering on stove in cast iron the crushed jam of strange berry that hung blossomed from the poplar trees... still, carrying the scent of sweet magnolia to me; finally, this cottons been washed of blood; I’ve cut the wings off from fallen butterflies, and have worn them, they adorn my hair--draped like kudzu rot— and makes beauty of my cries, dem eyes: liquified anguish over demise. Dem eyes. Dem beautiful southern, dark brown, night sky eyes, that catch light, like distant stars; beautiful be iron tortured wrought, strange & sealed beauty in southern rot all pinned up by colonial lepidopterists I’ll flutter south to visit kin milling around all the torn down monuments.

Leland Quarterly | Fall 2019

Red Tails Black Skin

Corazon Johnson

These men reduced to skin. Their identities are tools: forged damascus and coated by copper to conduct their dark tachyons into profitable actions. Mercy from segregated inequality: an isolated discomfort of perpetual dishonor: NO NEGRO plaques that hang (more) over (men’s) foreheads, than buildings they can’t breathe on a mantra that accompanies them hang of the precipice of their jaws but I ain’t do nothing and black man wasn’t wrong. When your body incriminates you, pleading its non-existence, the mind pleads relief in the distraction of hope. Of penance? the soul pleads insanity, the heart: the fifth because there’s nothing left to say. but I ain’t do no wrong. and the ink of black voice was nothing on white paper. Black Skin walked up to a giant metal bird that would lift Black Skin in flight; called to the 2nd war of a world that forgot them, by a country that tries to erase them Those pearled perils of faith— relief will come— you harbor— with conviction— that e x p a n d s Civil War inside a body: a Black Skin: a nexus between lands and people —like a hanging root of a cliff, dislodged by the naggin’ of ocean waves— a marketable alloy tarpaulin covering damascus beneath. Even after the 99th Pursuit Squadron congealed into a revered (honorable) title: Red Tails they flew home after the world settled to find spit at their feet. 36

Leland Quarterly | Fall 2019

Expérience de la Curiosité No. 3 Matt Mettias “Expérience de la Curiosité No. 3” contains wandering shapes that narrate the musical story of Yo-Yo Ma’s rendition of Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major, Prelude. The piece involved both physical and digital constructional components. I harnessed inspiration from the Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky’s abstractions to illustrate the progression of “Expérience de la Curiosité No. 3”: limitless movement through time and space and carefully crafted layering. The artwork, “read” without directional orientation, represents the boundless emergence of creative thoughts that peaked during my experience listening to Yo-Yo Ma.

Leland Quarterly | Fall 2019

Madam President

Cynthia Mchechu

My husband and daughter stand in a corner holding hands. I can tell they are proud of me. I want to walk over and wipe the tears from my husband’s face and kiss my daughter’s hopeful smile, but instead I send them a tightlipped smile from my seat. I am in a five-star hotel room. I have been on the edge of my seat for the last three hours, and I can already feel the knots on my back. I steal a glance at my lawyer who leans against a wall to my right and discreetly smiles over a glass of whiskey. She, too, must be proud. I tell her I didn’t see this coming. “Maryann,” she replies, “it’s so like you to not see your own potential. Here, have some wine. You look like you need to relax. I sent Shanon for some food.” But I am not thirsty. Before I could object, the glass is shoved into my hand. My lawyer looks at me expectantly. I sigh and take a small sip. She turns to her phone. I hold the wine loosely in my hand. On the television, the chairman of the National Electoral Committee speaks. Below him, my name appears next to my slogan. Maryann Tumaini. “No one gets left behind.” The first female president of Tanzania. A clanging of heels in the hallway like metal pans in a sink introduces my secretary’s presence seconds before she pushes the door open. She takes a moment too long to close the door, and I catch a whiff of spicy rice and barbecued meats. She walks over to me, tsks, and grabs the glass of wine from my hand and offers me water instead. “You shouldn’t be having this,” she says. I want to tell her I’m not thirsty. That all I could use right now is a quiet, private moment with my family. But before I could get the words out, the door opens again and in walks my campaign manager, Shanon. She holds a clipboard and flips through the pages. I look up and offer a small smile but she does not look back at me as she addresses me. “You have a press conference in thirty minutes. Janice has your speech.” My secretary hands me a piece of paper. I skim through it. It doesn’t sound like me. Shanon continues, “You need to pick a new cabinet by Saturday. We’ve shortlisted some names for you. We particularly recommend Mrs. Shirima for the Minister of home affairs. She donated a great deal of money to your campaign.”

Leland Quarterly | Fall 2019

I remember Mrs. Shirima. I met her at a fund raising dinner my aides organized a few months back. She talked over me and looked rather disappointed when I told her that my main focus would be reviving agriculture in the country as a means to help the sixty percent of women whose income depended solely on it. I remember Shanon grabbing my hand and giving it a painful squeeze. I remember her reassuring Mrs. Shirima that our government’s agenda would aim for the expansion of the business and manufacturing sectors in the country. I remember feeling small and insignificant. As I stare at my aides, standing around me and talking over me, the same feeling resurfaces. Through the corner of my eyes, I see my daughter. She crouches by the wall. Her smile has morphed into a frown. Her pubescent face is pale with uncertainty. “Don’t worry, they’ll be serving us lunch any moment now,” Shanon says after she notices the look I give my daughter. She then quickly continues with the agenda, “President Chami is on his way to congratulate you. He sent over some documents for you to review. They contain national debts so far.” Shanon tosses me a heavy booklet. It slips through my fingers and lands with a thud on my thighs, stinging me. I don’t bother reading through it as she summarizes the figures verbally. She tells me that my government will have to focus on exports and industrialization for economic growth. She tells me that it is about time we shifted our focus from the primary sector to the manufacturing sector. The television plays one of my popular speeches. The one I delivered to starving women in arid Central Tanzania. I promised them that as their president, I’d help them achieve self-reliance through irrigation agriculture. I ask if we could make room in the budget for the women, at least. My lawyer shakes her head, her gold earrings jiggling. I can tell I am annoying her. She has never been the most patient drunk. “Look, Maryann, we can’t help everyone-” The door bursts open and the room fills with the smell of foods. Five waiters walk in holding heaped platters in both hands. My lawyer stops talking and smiles. She sinks into a chair and closes her eyes. The food is served to us. My husband, my aides and I eat. But my daughter sulks, resigned, and watches us from a dark corner. She hides her head between her knees, an action I’ve only seen her do when her is losing a match. I feel ashamed. The television’s feature on famine and water shortage in Tanzania acts as background noise as we feast and talk about how there’s no food in Africa.

Leland Quarterly | Fall 2019

To All the Socks Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve Lost While Doing Laundry

Darnell Carson oh, Cotton Comforters of Feeble Feet i dare not say i am surprised this has happened too often to be a novelty and still, i must ask Worn-out Warriors of Weary Soles what was it that drove you away? was it the foot fights? i am sorry for the forced conflict i never meant anything by it you have always been better at flirting Wool Wingman for this mouth that frequently falters and i have never thanked you for how simple a conversation is When the socks are speaking maybe it was the smell? or a claustrophobia i never caught on to? i know how stuffy it must get when four feet fold at the foot of the bed when two hearts fall into each other i am sorry i didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t always take you off during sex you know how easily things are forgotten in the heat of a moment or in the arms of a lover how still two bodies can be when they share the same breath

Leland Quarterly | Fall 2019

i am sorry for losing you between sheets or under beds or at the back of a drawer i am sorry i didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t always do my laundry on time but when you made your grand escape during the spin cycle and slipped out the dryer back door i wonder were you sick of being told which sock was your perfect pair? were you transported to an island of lost socks? some land of queer cotton bodies no longer bound to lovers they never asked for did you meet the sock of your life there? does your no-show head tackle their knee-high chest everytime you see them? do you wrestle in sand and water together unafraid of what could happen? are you a perfect pair? do people think you look weird together? when youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re laying in their arms at night, do you even care?

Leland Quarterly | Fall 2019

Who Knows

Maya Mahony His face in gray light, eyes wondering. Wonder at what? At me. Imagine that. And here I am crying and hiding my face in his shoulder. And here I am riding the bus. I don’t make a sound. Still, I’m singing. The woman sitting next to me has radishes printed on her shirt. I run through the meadow. The petals are snowing. “Have you even seen snow?” says my friend, who grew up someplace cold. Tonight we are going dancing. And tomorrow— who knows. Who knows, who knows, like the swans, usually regal, now tipped upside down, feet wobbling, fishing for— who knows. River slime? Soggy bread? Not long ago I thought I might always be miserable. Imagine that.

Leland Quarterly | Fall 2019

breath like persimmons

Angeline Truong

i have grown up hearing your stories and your voice behind the thick velvet curtains by the fireplace, your large round eyeglasses glowing, big as the moon, as you read in your rocking-chair, and the sound your throat makes— a rustling, a burrowing— every time you turned the page, loud enough for me to hear, soft enough to be buried by the crackling of the fire. and yet if you asked me now, i could not pick your hands out of a crowd. i cannot remember whether they were rough, or smooth, or wrinkled, or brown, or pale perhaps they were slim, like a pianist’s, or poised, like a ballet dancer’s— perhaps you could relearn a person’s hands just by looking at grey pictures hanging on walls. in this frame, you smelled like the sea, but your periwinkle cashmere sweater smelled like mothballs, so i would pretend to eat oranges around you when you wore it so you would smell like citrus butterflies. in this picture, you fold the back of my dress up as i walked, fold my trailing tail into perfect origami-squares, as if you were about to make cranes flit after me. you would look up at the soft sky at night always while eating a hard-boiled egg, laughing softly to yourself as you bit into the warm and yolky inside of the moon. for this, there is no picture, no snapshot, just the edges of my memory, hanging on. 43

Leland Quarterly | Fall 2019

i am trying to remember what your laugh sounded like, for this poem. i will just go open your letters, hear them crackle as they open, goodbye, goodnight, i love you, all sound like crackles in my ears, like little boys stepping on seashells. today, because you died, so we come to celebrate. like an american birthday— we each get an incense wish. i bow before your altar and look up. though i know how your smile curves in a black and white picture framed in gold, i wonder how you smile now, and i wonder about the tendrils of smoke sweeping up from our incense sticks curling around your nose. i think that to see you alive, in this way, is terrible. you look like a flying thing, the snake-kind, a nothing which i cannot name. i think of you teaching, in a classroom miles from here— how tightly your glasses gripped your nose, just on the verge of slipping off; your face— round, genial, open, vulnerable soft like a lion’s belly. and how you wore your shirts just so: perfectly starched, and yet never perfectly white. you are writing 2x + 4 = 9 on the board for your students, in cursive and fine, yellow dust. 44

Angeline Truong | Fall 2019

in one of the other equations you could have written, this is not how it goes. in the other equation your halves cancel and your functions collapse into each other, instead of you collapsing onto the ground. i imagine the day you fell— the day your heart gave out— a small first grader walking into that classroom with rain-splattered red shoes, (only the second day she has worn them)— bending over your finely matted hair— pale-brown, mousy, wispy, much like you, and yet not at all. you always said— it is important to die in holy places. good men go to churches to die, and better men return to the desert. but what of a school? even aching is distant— and writing you into memory is like a shadow, trying to exist beyond its point of origin. just one more thing i remember— your breath smelled like persimmons.

Leland Quarterly | Fall 2019

In Fifteen Minutes Everyone Will Be Famous Kyle Cromer

Leland Quarterly | Fall 2019

The Future

Thomas White After Tracy K. Smith Apollo was faked and the Earth is flat, But Captain Kirk would be jealous anyways, Because there are no edges, only curves On the sleek little excuses in our pockets. Our world is a melting snowflake A family heirloom slipping from our grip, And weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re hovering in the second after We started running and missed a stair. But if we canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have our jetpacks, We can stick it to the normies, Joke about bombs and plan for zombies, Trying on apocalypses like sardonic T-shirts. Transgress everything till we fade together, Press our bodies in a sweaty mass and cheer; as the last chrome scraps of the future grow slimmer every year.

Leland Quarterly | Fall 2019

The sun’s cloak

Linda Liu

She calls me on a Saturday clear skies and shining sun I’m perfect, she says up high in the clouds, above stars blindingly bright— I’m perfect at life. And you shall bring nothing to my funeral, she says because there is nothing I need to become more Perfect. No explanation can be made, no excuses given my life never makes excuses and neither shall my death. So I only ask you this, she says to cover my bones with something Dark. For I fear the acid has sunk deep into the skull and those insides may appear as anything less than perfect— Promise me, she cries for once let them see Me without that cloak of light.

Leland Quarterly | Fall 2019

There is something alien about this arrangement, you will not encounter flowers like this in the wild. And yet everything around us is equally improbable in the form that it has taken. Think for a moment what fresh eyes would make of an eighty-foot palm tree or a California poppy sprouting from the pavement. The objects around us appear familiar only by that fact that we have seen them since birth, and they have thereby been bled of their strangeness. Life Like Weeds, no. 2 Kyle Cromer

Leland Quarterly | Fall 2019

Nereid’s Sac —the mutterings of an alien of earth—

Ember Fu Note: The name “Nereid” is associated with both myth and moon. She possesses the strangest orbit of all known moons in the solar system, indicative of past perturbance.

* Little is still known about this particular moon, they think, and with snaps of intangible space, her fingers fleet in orbit. i. The threads are thin and i bind in silk, spinning with spider’s tail a cocoon tilts knees paling in the innate glow. Still thinning crooked legs dance tightly, pulled inside, spinning the threads, the threads, hoping to thicken them, to hide the story to be untold, webs like bandages, as to cloud the lens close my heart with a blindfold. I. How many constellational jeers must I sip? observing the cold burst between my tongue and lips, My weight against the air, the way I cannot flinch when filaments cut shallowly into my skin. Am I so abysmal a body? with my dark surface, craterstruck, lacking their celestial blessings, lacking “heaven’s glow”— Each day, or is it night? I keep my murmurs cautious, I test the fabric of my mind at every syllable.

Leland Quarterly | Fall 2019

ii. The planetscape changes shades with collisions, horrid holes open and sink in my visions, auroras pass, blotty nebulous dots hover around my shoulders a papery cover wraps. The drizzle of weavingâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; my self-binds giving some form of reprieving, strange! so strange, they say, looking through the astro-glass what mannerism of moon is this, circling thus? Alas strange, so strange, i have the phenomenon of a drone, made to be robotic and queer, and dreaming of syndromes. II. I think that I am like she, who follows Neptune, Adjoined yet distant in outer planes, to those voyaging I reach out with my fingers. But they look with pitted eyes Point like the tips of rapiers, singling out the lonely star they snap their fingers, exclaiming discovery upon ripping off a veil I did not don, This so-called revealing me to be a dark moon. iii/III. The piece i wove has near complete, soon I may close my eyes, retract my feet, shelled away in a cave, a cloak from pain, a world where I am saneâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; The swathy white strands enclose the shape like a bean, and between the uncovered folds, i am peering with scorpion eyes. The gauze enfolds like an egg in turned time. * Nereid is salient for its highly eccentric, inclined orbit; she takes us far, far from Neptune. If only we embrace this strangeness with which she encircles the stars, but alas, she has shrouded herself in her web of clouds, she has disappeared, as they have wished. 51

Leland Quarterly | Fall 2019

Contributing Artists & Writers Saray Bedoya (Poetry/Art) is a FLI first year student at Stanford University with a passion for immigration law, education equity and race relations in Latin America. She has dedicated this poem to all the Afro Latines who have ever experienced identity erasure. Keona Blanks (Poetry) is a frosh from Ewa Beach, Hawaiʻi interested in environmental justice and sustainability. Ever since she published her first poem in the seventh grade, Keona has been an avid writer, a characteristic she plans to channel into activism to serve Hawaiʻi’s environmental justice movement when she returns. Kyle Cromer (Art) was born in the Appalachian mountains of Virginia, the son and grandson of large animal veterinarians. He currently lives in Palo Alto and works as a postdoc in the department of Pediatrics (Class of 2021). Because he can’t play a musical instrument or paint worth a darn, he tries to create through his science and his collages. Ember Fu (Poetry) explores computer science, psychology, and philosophy at Stanford University. Enthusiast of fiction and poetry, her work changes with the music she’s listening to: EDM, rock, classical, epic metal. Her favorite things are food, games, and finding out she has clean pants for tomorrow. And writing, of course. Jacob Langsner (Prose) is a Junior at Stanford University. While he studies political science and art history, Jacob’s passion lies in filmmaking. At Stanford, Jacob works to craft narratives incorporating issues of contemporary and historical relevance. Please view Jacob’s biography, writing, and films at www.jacoblangsner. com, or on Instagram: @jakelangsner. Linda Liu (Poetry) was born in Dalian, China and raised in Vancouver, Canada. Besides writing, she also enjoys swimming and drawing. You can become great friends with her by sending her dog memes or buying her fried chicken.

Leland Quarterly | Fall 2019

Zach Lo (Prose) is a sophomore studying English and Education. He is originally from an alternate universe where everything is the exact same, except he submitted this bio on time. Maya Mahony (Poetry) is a senior majoring in English with a focus in fiction writing. She loves spending time in nature, swingdancing, and playing guitar. She wrote her poem while studying abroad in Oxford last year. Zoe Mahony (Poetry) is a senior history major from California. In the about the author section of the stories her class wrote in second grade, she said she likes books, climbing trees, and playing games with her sisters. Not much has changed 14 years later. Cynthia Mchechu (Prose) is a freshman who is undecided majorwise. She is originally from Tanzania, Africa, and she is inspired greatly by her home and uses every opportunity she gets to talk and write about it. She intends to write many more short stories, finding the genre freeing and exhilarating. Matt Mettias (Art) is a multimedia visual and sound artist. Alongside classes, heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s been independently studying photography for just over five years now. Most of his photographs involve digital manipulation of commonplace objects transformed to speak the visual language of abstract artwork. Each work is constructed through a process of color layering, texturing, and integration. The idea is to lose the context of each photograph through abstraction and then reconstruct each piece through the re-contextualized expression of an abstract painting. Kelsey Urban (Poetry) is a senior studying Sociology and minoring in Political Science and Poetry passionate about communication and the outdoors.

Leland Quarterly | Fall 2019

Angeline Truong (Poetry) is a junior at Stanford University majoring in Human Biology. She is interested in community health — particularly the health of Vietnamese refugees in the Bay Area, where she grew up. She sees poetry and medicine as dual tools to narrativize and uplift the voices of Vietnamese-American refugees. Sam Waddoups (Prose) is a freshman at Stanford University who’s still figuring how to answer basic questions like “Where are you from?” and “What’s your major?” He enjoys the simple pleasures of life: LaCroix, speculative fiction, Wheat Thins, fun socks. If he could be any animal, he would be a human. Thomas White (Poetry) is a senior aerospace major and creative writing minor. When he’s not writing, he builds rockets, fences, climbs, plays in a space-themed cover band, hangs out at Stanwrit, begs with Wolfram Alpha, acts as if following politics will make him happy, and blames himself for not writing enough.

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