Re:Visions 2023

RE:VISIONS

This representative collection of writing by Notre Dame students is published through the Creative Writing Program in the Department of English. Each year, a new editorial board of students solicits and selects manuscripts, and oversees the production of the journal in order to encourage creativity and recognize student writing of notable quality.

Editor-in-Chief: Jamjun Rorsoongnern

Assistant Editors: Drew Morgan & Annie Brown

Design and Layout: Annie Brown, Drew Morgan, Amanda Dempson

Supporting Editors: Amanda Dempson, Sophia Buonavolonta, & Camila Salinas

Graduate Liason: Taylor Thomas

Marketing Team: Jen Santana, Katherine Gilboy, Lizzette Borjas, Lynda White, Paige Jenkins

Cover Artwork: “Light in the Darkest of Times,” Kylo Goskoy

John Huebl named Re:Visions in 1986. Re:Visions, New Series began in 2002.

This is Re:Visions, New Series 16.

Copyright 2023 by Re:Visions

LETTER FROM THE EDITORS

Dear Readers and Contributors, Whether you sought it out or stumbled upon it, thank you for picking up Re:nnaisance, the 20th edition of the University of Notre Dame’s literary journal Re:Visions. Our editors worked hard to craft the issue, pulling together works that revolve around the theme of rebirth and expand on the classic definition of “renaissance.” The contributors to this edition grappled with this theme and returned renewed, bringing wildly creative and emotional pieces that feature shapeshifting, emotional reexaminations, and even reimaginings of objects we once thought we knew well.

As we continue to measure our lives in terms of “pre-covid” and “post-covid”, we may find ourselves uneasy with the new normal we have created. It is certain that none of us are the same person as we were when we read last year’s edition of Re:Visions, nor will you be the same by the end of this journal. As we find our new footing and take big strides forward in a world both familiar and unrecognizable, we hope you find enjoy the thoughts shared by our contributors and are reborn along with them.

Thank you again for reading.

With hope, The Editors

POETRY

A Winter’s Afternoon

Michael Chaney

A framework of sunshine through bare winter trees frozen portraits of life change in the breeze.

Snowflakes refracting the sun’s cold light descending and swirling rainbows in flight.

Nature in slumber and covered in frost days seemingly wasted but nothing is lost.

Brown crumpled leaves in snow covered piles all is at rest and silent for miles. Soon spring will come and awaken the world life will again burst forth the earth’s glory unfurled.

An Ode to the Last of Teenage Girlhood

Madeline Prugh

Wide-leg sweatpants will stitch the hole in my head back together again. I know it! The leaves are falling, and- for the first time -this is a good thing. The air is crisp, but it does not yet sting. Tomorrow morning I will take a walk, and that girl (walking) will be my new reflection. I will drink the burnt coffee left in the pot if you tell me you made it just for me. I’ll add enough milk and sugar until it goes down smooth, and I’ll tell you it’s the best cup I’ve ever had. This time, I mean it. Tomorrow I will wear the blue and green scarf in my drawer and kiss the morning sun awake. Just briefly, my mind gives up its campaign of wrath. This morning there are leaves in my hair and a passing warmth from the sky and it is not the end of anything.

Artisan

Katie Clem

Today a little girl is getting ready for her first ballet class.

She is twirling with her arms spread like wings, fingers stretching towards the wall. She imagines that paint is shooting out of her fingertips when she twirls. Right now she is painting us a mural.

Soon, she will learn to tuck her thumb behind her hand and curve her fingers like a real ballerina.

Then, she will learn to point her toes and tuck her tailbone under and squeeze her belly in.

Eventually, she may discover that she is really just a whole collection of broken parts:

an elbow that hyperextends too much and a hip that doesn’t hyperextend enough

a spine that is too curved and a foot that does not curve enough

a belly is is too soft and a face that is too hard and does not smile enough

a heart that pounds too fast and

a brain that warns of danger even when there is none.

A broken machine, she will decide that if she cannot be an artist, she will have to become a mechanic.

Her days will be spent tinkering, twisting, purging, and stretching.

She will suffer the aching muscles and bruised legs and clumps of hair falling out on the pillow each night.

She will pay the price for the body she has and the body she does not have.

She may not exist for awhile but that is okay because when she comes back (hopefully) everything will be fixed and everything will be perfect and she will finally move like an artist again.

August Bit Down Hard

Clare Barloon

Refusing to be shaken off before it could draw blood

Sickness, fear of death, and blinding gold sunlight swirled in the muggy air

I swallowed nectarine after glorious nectarine, the sweet juice running down my face and hands

Rivers of ichor drew new maps across my skin

Though, of course, the heat brings a lethargy far stronger than any wanderlust

So, these new lands remained unexplored

Populated only by the silver blond hair on my arms and the mosquito bites I scratched to the point of scarring

Sickness, fear of death, and blinding gold sunlight

Chalk Transformer

Nathaniel Dodson

Two men enter a room. Both men are in thought. One man represents light, The other represents dark. They both embark on a quest of creation and contemplation.

Deep dark thought is Johnny, driven to daydream, What could his thought mean?

Dark thought becomes bright as God enlightens, This knight – daydreaming of color added to a transformer.

Bright light exposed is Mitch, driven to draw, Energy in action; not to Johnny’s satisfaction. Bright light becomes dim and this deadens him, Entropy prevails no color but white prevails.

Dark knight contemplates Bright lights creation, And adds upon the creation with color. Bright lights candle burns hot and fast, Dark knights candle burns cold and slow.

One energy explodes then recedes in white light, Dark knight implodes with thought adding color, To naught.

Childhood

Michael Chaney

Semicircles traced into the sand forming worlds with little hands daily adventures at every sunrise limitless horizons from unspoiled eyes.

Knees in the dirt connected to earth crawling, climbing, moving since birth always looking ahead in reverent awe all of life’s wonders vivid and raw.

Fuzzy cats, bouncing dogs, and squirrels in trees butterflies, beetle bugs, and fat buzzing bees red birds, blue birds both big and small curious, accepting and loving to all.

Coca Cola Ad Before a War Crime

JP Spoonmore

Paper cup seam center-frame, Hand delivered at the front porch, lid missing exposed to the night air and foyer, Erratic fizzing swarms through the ice, Locusts of carbonized bubbles, A plague upon the studio-lit living room bouncing between froth and cubes like a fuse lit beneath that bubbled meniscus, Spencerian script pressed against the digital frame, White carvings barricade delectable red like Dresden ruins doused in eternal flames printed in a Hoosier’s novel, lifeless time swirled in ink galaxies wide, trapped within Allied firebombs burrowing through German cathedrals and marketplaces, An extinction event sealed within a medieval moat, the first light dawns on songbirds over charred milkmaids, Their skin soda brown crusty in chemical syrup and as memories live on against the painted sides of that Coca Cola cup, the actress forgets her troubles.

Before I can press SKIP AD

She presses it to her lips and swallows.

Culdesac Prayers

Madeline Prugh

God lives in the house next door. / I know his name and his football team of choice / and I know I’d knock on his front door if my house burned to the ground. / He knows everything about me, nothing at all / What I mean to say is that I have lived in this house for nineteen years and I couldn’t tell you his last name / What I meant to say is that a fence is a fence and all the kids on my street are all grown up. / No more pavement-scraped knees. / I fail to wave from the driver’s seat, I don’t nod at the mailbox, I stumble in the language of suburbia. / Last week, my car sat in the driveway, late into the morning, far too many times. Next week, I will burn my bare feet on the concrete, running after dogs running after rabbits.

/ What I mean to say is that you stopped by for coffee in the afternoon and asked me if I believe in God. / What I meant to say is that there is a house next door. Sometimes the lights are on.

Dis Land

Joy Agwu

Da birds gon join ma melody

Dey sing Calypso tune

Even wen I go ta sleep

Da city sound like you

We walk pon hard sand ‘ere

(Pray it don cut meh foot)

Da food don tase like trees ‘ere

And I miss meh ginga root

Da city it stay towa ova mi

I neva feel so small

I call ma girl and pray she dance for mi

And den I gon fahged it all

Fada God, let meh fahged it all

Fahged de trees fahged de breeze

Fahged de golden sand

Maybe wen I lose meh tauts de ‘ome

Ah gon start ta love dis land

The birds join my melody

And sing a Calyspo tune

Even when I go to sleep

The city sounds like you

We walk on hard sand here

I pray it doesn’t cut my foot

The food just taste like trees here

And I miss my ginger root

The city always towers over me

I’ve never felt so small

I’ll call my girlfriend and ask her to dance for me

And them I’m going to forget it all

Father God, let me forget it all

Forget the trees forget the breeze

Forget the golden sand

Maybe when I lose my thoughts of home

I’ll start to love this land

Diarmuid the Donegal Half Giant

JP Spoonmore

Europe’s buried tongues mummified in his leather briefcase, A wedding gift he’s kept preserved across the seas. Their forgotten voices harmonize under his thumb As he catches each syllable in the projector rays slide by slide.

Chile and Belfast bask in his conference room coffee chats, Quick with a joke and a chuckle or two, An ancient joy twinkles in his eyes.

A palm reader of surnames and etymology, His tangents revive centuries for home-town punchlines, Your family’s past just a lecture away But would you recognize its sound?

Humbled by mortal architects, He ducks under lights into doorways Yet always gives the cinderblock classroom a white-bearded smile.

For him, textbooks read like remixes of manuscripts, Old spellings are par for the course in his essay annotations, In conversation, he talks about colored TV as if it’s still new.

Spring break torments his soul with empty syllabus dockets, Curious, he asks where you’re going to offer one last piece of advice,

“There’s no sharks in Cabo.”

Eldest Daughter

Katie Clem

in the bleak inner landscape of rolling tissue hills and dark water wells, my vertebrae are stacked like the sandstones of a crumbling castle wall

unsteady, they’re crashing in towards each other, warping, perhaps trying to form a stone circle like mystery memorial to the the person I used to be, a sanctuary for family history, an altar to the grief I mustn’t forget.

this curve in my spine is how I remember to always be sad.

I feel the constant pressure of the dreary wind gusts against my castle walls, fluent in tension headaches and late nights. the castle was once warmed by cozy fireplaces, but I vigalently threw out the blazing logs with my bare handsmake me bony. make me cold. make me invisible

long before I learned to defend, a monster snuck in, and now he’s trapped in the dungeon. I’m worried the memory of my assailant will always make his hostile home in the soft layers of tissue around my hip bones. I pigeon pose each night and beg him to fly away, but I’m afraid I’ve trapped him too tight. he’s stuck. I’m trapped.

all of me, a wound to close, I scream through the open air window to my mother. she’s off in her zen garden, yin yoga field, solar plexus pressed permanently towards the sun

can’t you see I’m fighting on my own?

but she knows. woman of kinked spine migraines, I know her heart space hides unimaginable things.

I’m waiting for someone to send an arrow through the sky and strike me down, tell me to stop defending. I don’t remember what I’m fighting for. strike me down and let me rest, finally, on the cold stone floor.

Fireflies

Taylor Batilo

— for my grandmothers

Where then does she go when rosary beads bumble like ruby fireflies trapped in a palm’s shadow and her

prayer cards invite sunlight skipping into the foyers of her soul, slicing gray dust that sambas in rays across the room,

and arising she stretches wings drenched with life’s mud and rain, simmering alone in Pandora’s box, not knowing where tears end or begin; for

wherever that heavenly train wanders surely she is not wheelchair-enthroned, glaucoma-eyed, arthritis-bent, cancer-eaten, rolled, pressed, and squeezed like toothpaste; no the fireflies are all gone, escaped, nameless — and she is as elephants roaming free on the plains: memory the only guide, strong, upright, proud, as her husband’s smile remains photographed forever.

First Summer

Fabrice Uwihirwe

i remember wondering what I was doing there. you answered the door looking almost as diffident as i was. an infinite moment passes before i clear the butterflies from my throat.

“hey”

“hey” a bad joke later, and the dams crack. words, laughter, mannerisms flow and are engrained imperfectly. i don’t remember the walk in the park, or how terrible my jokes surely were–though you seem to. but i do remember wondering how melanin could shine so bright.

Fisherman’s Bastion

Molly O’Toole

It’s not remembrance— Liffey, Danube, Thames, Tiber, mostly— but that clear truth of standing on top of hills and seeing below to see, a dense and chalky roasted chestnut, a river that never needed your witness, and then hold it like a dove tight to your chest, to feel bone under feather to still something so wild.

Glow Up

Joy Agwu

sometimes, when i look in the mirror, i see Her. staring gloomily back at me. she’s hollow. she let go of her soul, so i fear she’s trying to swallow up mine. but i will never, ever let her have it. i can’t. this soul is so beloved by thousands. it glows brightly & effortlessly. i don’t have to do a single thing. i hardly even exist think anymore. i just let this shiny soul do all the heavy lifting and i pray that the hollowed-eyed ghost of Her doesn’t ruin it.

Hair

KC Castillo

For years on out my mother tells me to cut my hair, And I say no, but I would be lying if I say I didn’t consider it. Este pelo no ase caso.

Este pelo confuso que ase poco no existía. Este pelo que me vuelve loco, pero yo por nada lo cambiaria. Este pelo que yo amo, pero mi familia como si fuera nada lo cortaría.

Because to them it means lack of opportunities, lack of respect, a high chance of death, and too much blackness.

And the reason they hate it is the reason I love it. Because to me it means success, freedom, pride, and a representation of my blackness. It shows that my people are rising up and will no longer live in darkness.

Yo soy Afro-Latino.

Ven y baila conmigo y miraras lo que yo miro. Porque mis pasos y pelo cuentan la historia del pasado y mi destino.

So every time my mother tells me I should cut my hair, I say no. Because cutting my hair to me feels like I’m letting my blackness go.

Inspired by: Elizabeth Acevedo’s poem “Hair”

If i Killed Her

Joy Agwu

if i killed her on a snowy day it would be a mercy No one would hear her No one would hear her No one would hear her whine for safety scream incessantly plead as if Anyone cares about her tears she cries so damn much maybe if her wails weren’t so insistent---

the snow will be gentle to her let her fall asleep in a blanket of snow it will hold her preserve her tend to her in the ways i never could it will protect her

until it too wants a new beginning and fades away into spring i will be long gone and unrecognizable as a free woman any shadows will be ignored in lieu of my glow i will shine

but she will be exactly the same Frozen and Unchanging

in waves

Fabrice Uwihirwe

you find me at my lowest. a shell of who i was, an eroding husk craving to be full.

in waves, you charge in, unannounced, until i am washed away; whether your waters are shallow or bottomless, i will lose myself all the same. there’s a brief respite before you come crashing down again. my lungs fill with you, but enough breath remains to call your name. maybe this is what you wanted.

i am baptized, but not made new. cleaned yet never cleansed. how many waves can i endure until i am sand?

Invocation of Clio

Michael Cain

All praise! to thee, O wisened sister, Laurel-crowned royal lister!

From thy blessed circle step: Unveil to us thy secrets kept Entombed beneath thy temple’s grove, Unbeknownst even to Jove.

Light upon the trodden sphere And whisper unto careful ears; Weave thy robe of wave and wind And give new life to winged pen.

With mystic sight, thy fire-eye, Read to us the coded sky. Tell their destiny to men: What must be borne And born again.

Lorenza delos Santos

Taylor Batilo

Some days she carries her life like a stone

Jagged like the pungent absence in her son’s room. Loose hair hands about her face. Her true persona Like those motherly teas — linden & chamomile —

Soothing a child-shaped tear in her chest. Outside is Caloocan, a mostly poor, northern Manila suburb. The windows to her heart riddled with holes.

Distant suits in presidential offices spin webs

In a bloody anti-narcotics operation named Massacre named Betrayal named Stolen. Camera showed the police leading the boy away

At least two gunshot wounds to the head and torso

Shot at close range while kneeling

A picture paints blame on the gun in his left hand Even though the boy was right-handed.

The body winding down to zero. The crashing Scales of justice spill crimson over Manila’s corners. The roaring, leaving charred bodies in a ravaged landscape

Marble

JP Spoonmore

The heaviest flesh

Folds and sags

Upon the mother’s hand, Her tears

Carved onto her cheek

Drip in Peter’s lofty chamber,

Air conditioned

Amongst the spotlights.

Hustling whisperers

Point out

The crown of thorns

The creases in fabric

Oh, the revered pose of a spotless ghost!

Yet one sits apart

To scribble cats that refuse

To stay still,

Eyes bored and hands exhausted

He does not look back

To a masterpiece completed.

Mothering

Taylor Batilo

— after Sheryl Luna

Meticulously blowing on boo-boos, she is light kiss on a fevered brow. She say’s she’s known kitchens forever. There’s a tasting spoon in her sink. Chasing for deals, she navigates each birthday’s wish, ironing creases a dozen times. We fall into hugs, into meals. What’s unseen is as important as what’s seen. Vibrant and never settling, she counts coin copper. Entrées dance in throats. English at times a burden. Soapy dishes dry. Her singing she says is feeding her child. Joints swell over the stove of heat sucking air, She uses scissors and shapes photos and memories. Travel, and the roads she remembers, teach her to see. Dimming is her curve of teeth and glowing the streaks of gray. She’s claimed hearts masked and mended, palates amazed. Shadow then shine, the blessed turn of her fate. Typhoon tackled, she is unwinding the tempo of loss, the trifold of flags. Bareness traded for plush baby mittens. All is well in the cooling late afternoon of her life. She is a tailor tugging threads. She sews parsley, votives, a new melody unyielding.

— for Mom

Saint or Sinner

Nathaniel Dodson

Self-Portrait

I am a saint, I am a sinner. What decides most peoples fate is which is the winner. Today, I am a saint, Tomorrow, I may become a sinner. Which, me, would you rather see?

I am a saint: my energy is blue! I am a sinner: my energy is red! The struggle between Good and Evil is real – Inside my head. One drop of energy in either direction will change how I feel. You can help me make this choice with the energy of your voice, I try to balance my energy toward the saint – no control, One drop of your energy may change the balance to who I hate!

I am the saint you can be the sinner, All I want to become for my children is the winner – I am in control!

I will let go of the angry red, As I grasp and step forward to the clear cool blue, I take the choice away from you!

Forevermore the saint – no longer the sinner, Now I watch you forever simmer!

sea cure

Katie Clem

mad woman, they sent you here to heal with me. asked my salt air and peaceful scenery to cure the sadness they see in you. melancholia, they call it. your sorrow is too heavy for them, your spirits are too low. my question for you is thiswho told you were not free to dive in and explore these depths? what worried hands have yanked you back to shore? told you it was not safe to explore? I’m saying to youhere I am, deep blue, wild, and open. my waves are raging against the world and you want that. I’m not telling you to be careful or stay close to the shore.

I’m telling you that you can and you must dive deep. There is so much here for you to explore.

Semi-Sorta Exes;

I’ll Chisel Until my Frogs are Free

Ariana Howe

I could never sympathize with the butterflies which fluttered in the stomachs of my peers, much preferring to forcibly swallow the ribbits of hopping frogs, splashing in my abdomen.

vacating from the home of my stone torso, my frogs attempt to flee; I can sense them, shivering at the idea of him, hiding in the acid of my stomach lining; bobbing under the surface of the gastric acid and bolus, they edge towards my pyloric sphincter. my leashed butterflies camouflage against my pharynx and silent bees burrow beneath the surface of my tissue, their gradually atrophied wingspans and desiccated toad skin amalgamate against my organs, penetrating my digestive system in search of sanctuary.

my body sits torpefied, frozen: unease like a goo, sleazing down my windpipe and coating my lungs.

I’m a statue, internally quivering in the silence, with each inhale the ooze percolates further, dripping down onto my lung’s bronchioles and forcing my alveoli to seal shut, unreceptive as I try to breathe.

my frogs are trapped within these stone halls, searching for an escape from my inwardly eroding cavern--waiting for the earth to carve way at me with its time and pressure, return me to the river’s sediment.

currently, his fresh spider-webbed gashes mark my psyche where once his hand had chiseled deeply, diligently, with large strokes and authority into the boulder of my being, his touch was tender and soft, gently working away at my rock with every confided secret, a sculptor bringing out the beauty he saw hidden in the clay.

for a while, he was my waking colors, the swirls and patchwork on my gray inscriptions, and I grew to crave his hammering; yet sometimes, seemingly out of nowhere, he’d stop altogether, waiting until my entire being would whimper, begging for his presence, and I’d plead with him to return.

now,

sledgehammer flaunting about, he’s chiseled cracks through my natural protection, penetrating to the dermis, crunching and gnawing at my unshielded crumbling form, plaster replacing his oncefinished maquette’s clay as its armature weakens beside me; amphibian croaks reverberate into an empty chasm, stifled by the solidity of the stone sealing. a blood shell sluggishly solidifies around

my slick marred heart, the hot red hardening to a cool gray as splinters ricochet across my ribcage. paralyzed, my eyes transfix on the ground; only my pair of shoes blur into the background of my sight.

my breath quickens, diaphragm contracting rapidly when I hear his name. The hairs on my arm prickle and my body goes tense. He’s not even in the room with me, yet I feel as if I’m waging a battle; my mind at war with itself with the very thought of him.

his work has become disillusioned, an unveiling of his unpredictable art, a wedge slammed into my trust, prying open what once was freely given.

these butterflies wish they never broke from their chrysalis, the frogs digging for the small intestine,

I yearn for the etchings of the past; his bozzetto had promised mastery, yet now the blueprint carries dry dust of brittle bricks where he snapped off a piece of sculpture, of yesterday’s precise handiwork tore anew, and of endless deteriorating lines from starting and stopping without continuity.

I’m left only with my skin of serrated stone from his incessant pounding, frogs trembling in the pit of my gut, and my sighs

and my sighs from the loss of a Friend.

The Getaway Rose Androwich

They took everything and everyone away from me. No voice for me to scream, they silenced that too.

Everyone they had on their side became a killer. You weren’t a killer though. Not when I met you or so I thought.

I found you buried in the hole- there was nothing you could do. You asked me to help you.

How could I refuse?

When I cared so deeply about you. I knew you were suffering from the same abuse.

Those words they say to you but, it’s more than that. It’s all you wanted being stripped away.

That’s what causes such heavy pain.

The thing you once loved has brought you to your ruin. What do you do when you’ve seen the things I have?

I saw the ones I loved be killed or become the killer.

What about me though?

The one who rises from the dead every time. Lost count of how many times they tried to bury me.

Always knowing which knife to stab. Such treacherous powers to have.

You’re going to end up in there again. With no one to get you out. You weren’t made for this life.

I, however, was.

It’s better to be dead than barely surviving. You watch your back everyday running and hiding from this dark place.

This world is kill or be killed from your perspective though. You have no idea where I come from. The twisted place that I call home. It’s where I learned to run.

My sentence in this prison is almost done. Too bad we could’ve left sooner. We could’ve left together.

Now for me it’s just a few more months of being a survivor. Unless I gain that power.

There’s one thing I won’t let myself become. The dictator you betrayed me to be.

You won’t even look me in the eyes. I see past it all.

The facade you try so hard to keep on. You said you were a chameleon. Now I truly see it but I cannot call you traitorous.

There’s nothing you can do to ruin someone. Who has been so ruined before.

You on the other hand dont have me left to stab in the back. Do you really trust any of their intentions?

Whatever insecurity you’re suffering through. Will be put on display for everyone to see. You’ll wish you had the courage to leave.

Climbed my way out of the hole they put me in. It felt so deep like there was no way out. All alone in the darkness of the hole. Clawing at the dirt. It covered my fingers. When I got close to the surface, I had found one inch left that I could claw through. I didn’t have to look to know that dirt covered my face. I got out of the grave hardly for my own sake. I had learned to live from the inside.

I only wanted to help the next person out. You told me your getaway plan and I knew it all too well. Turning to methods I never thought of you. It was all a smoke show though. I brought you out of the grave. You shoved me right back in. In the place I pulled you out of. I used a shovel to dig you out. And what did you do?

Laughed in my face,stabbed me in the back with a knife. You buried me back in the grave. The place I learned to call home. Been there so many times before. You wouldn’t know that though.

The dark hole no longer scared me. It didn’t cause me shame and now I dont want out. I can’t even be mad at you for pushing me in.

You saw how fast they turned their back. Yet you were the one begging for their forgiveness. Hurting from the wounds of being stabbed. The ones I tried to heal. I could never save you from yourself.

From the corruption you’ve been driven to. You had every single chance to be nothing like them. What happened to wanting to be different?

You hide your sickness and your deceit from me. You who claim to hate the patriarchy. Unless it benefits you.

You’re the man and I’m the whore. They used to think I was innocent. Now I’m just the one easiest to hate.

You firsthand get to witness my oh so perfect getaway. From them and also from you. Never to be fooled again. The calculated women. I always win.

The Shepards

Clare Barloon

It’s no wonder the angels found Shepherds to talk to, They know a humbler god than any I’ve ever met. A god who could spend all day tearing up blades of grass

This god eats fruit, lays in the sun, speaks of rain, And complains when you ask for the time

Alberto Caeiro never kept sheep

But his soul is like a shepherd, Wandering through a pastoral sadness Blessing its natural divinity

And, of course, this is the divinity of dirt

The divinity of lanolin and matted fur

Of brambles and queen anne’s lace and clods of mud

And of those star shaped white-blue flowers on the hill. Do you remember how you knew spring came when you saw those flowers?

And how they paraded the children out

To bless a nearby Mary with a crown of flowers they had bought in a store

Those white-blue star flowers would have pleased her more

I never kept sheep

But I could roam those hills

The sheep could follow, if they so pleased What matters is the roaming,

The rolling green hills, And the dull gray sky. The shepherd’s crook would be a nice addition If only for the outline it would make against the sunrise

It’s no wonder the angels found Shepherds to talk to, No group is lonelier or better at wandering down the right path.

To my grandson’s America

Taylor Batillo

— after Dorothea Lange’s photograph of a man teaching his grandson to walk in a Japanese internment camp in Manzanar, California

His eyes like black pearls with the luster of life’s triumph still hope

through the blasting dust and blistering heat that slingshots thru Manzanar’s dry noon. A fortress of muddy mountains hide your peoples colored by a fearful sun, torn from your womb in the fog of a war that accuses us — your hungry children yearning to breathe free.

Grief so strong it runs through fences cannot keep him from loving you, America.

Careful with his tongue as you carve the English you speak into its buds.

Gentle with his heart as you lock it up in rabbit pens where accents live.

And when he drops like an apple left unplucked, catch him America! So someday, you’ll love him too.

Today I felt foolish

Clare Barloon

So, I went and waded through the creek I wish it would have rained

What I’m saying is I need to be washed

Pummeled, really, and then wrung out But not left up to dry

And preferably God would perform the ceremony Or whatever is in control of nature these days

Perhaps I ought to think more locally Forget the invention of monotheism And pray to the creek to baptize me

Now I’m realizing I should have left an offering Another pilgrim

Probably a child, for they always understand these things, Left an arrangement of sea glass Or, rather, creek glass

I remarked on it

Knew not to touch it

But it did not occur to me

To match the donation

Next time I will

And perhaps my offering will invite rain

The summer has been dry

I haven’t yet seen the creek rush with the night’s blessing What would the god of localized thunderstorms desire And where could I leave such an offering?

Transition

Molly O’Toole

The aftermath was a chorus of why. everyone exchanging stories, moments They remembered. Something I once Said or heard would return to me

In the middle of the night and I’d Go ill. When I talked to Sarah she said ‘We’re all trying to piece it together And she’s somewhere laughing.’ It was strange to be in a place Where no one knew who you were. I would float, at least a foot above or below ground, watching all the humans And seeing only ghosts. I drew up a normal expression, Wanting to scream that you lived. To shout your name. To tell everyone To stop laughing. To tell everyone to laugh.

Truth Keeper

Katie Clem

the truth of those years is mostly blurry and I’m not quite sure I trust it but

this I know is true: for many years I painted us with my brightest colors and sprinkled glitter dust on the paint while it dried.

when I told our story it was about a leader that was mainly strict, sometimes caring, always a genius. I used words like discipline, and passion, and slow craft, and dream come true. now I paint us with dark disorganized strokes. tell the story of a leader that was mainly cruel, sometimes manipulative, always wrong. use words like starvation, molestation, isolation.

on bad days, when I start to miss the life we used to have,

I am horrified to see the paintbrush still in my own hand.

how cruel am I for painting us like this?

it is on these days that body, forced to become a book about herself, finally speaks up. she uses words like tachycardia, vertigo, nausea.

how wonderful, how horrible must it feel for her to know the real truth.

Wayside

Clare Barloon

Nestled in the valley at the top of a hill

Where the yellow gray storm clouds rush in to comfort and berate the lightning strike house

Where purple red berries are dragged in On the bottoms of old shoes and bare feet

Fleeing the dark rain

Those stains are impossible to scrub out

what stars know

Katie Clem

I live in a world where to say anything at all, I must prepare a face.

Pleasant smile and gentle eye contact, I must string the strongest thoughts together with a perfect mix of fillers and qualifiers to make sure I’m not too much.

Does that make sense?

So sorry if I interrupted but.. like I’m no expert in this I was just kinda thinking maybe

I am the most intelligent when I’m staring off into space.

No expression, dead eyes, I stare at the stars, dying balls of light, and I understand what it means to be wise.

Faceless, blinding, celestial beings hold knowledge of millenia close to their chests and say nothing at all.

Prose

The Skinwalker Monologue

Chloe Onorato

How often have I climbed unmade trails and suffered knees brittle as a spoken word? How often have I ventured into the open air and resented the sickliness of my own breath in my chest? Shuddering not from rapture but the rejection of my own nature! I am mouth-to-mouth with the world, but time and again, my shell confines me to the artificial sunlight of human hovels. I want to cast it off and let it waste away, away into a false memory I am eager to forget. I want to peel it away with the same meticulous viciousness of peeling a grape. I want to tear myself asunder until my flesh can breathe in sea-salted, pollensweetened air. I want that hide to be covered with hair, with fur as thick as the meadow grasses of Inishmore until every pore is filled with rough country. I want to be enveloped in a cocoon the color of that ancient turf, binding me on every organic level to the wild and turning me into a being of peat and sea spray. I want to rip the remnants of my skin off my warped legs, leaving them with a strength that does not come from fetters. I want my legs to be able to carry me across rock-strewn paths and plush, sinking pastures with breakneck, bone-jarring, wind-swallowing speed. I want to feel the gritty fingers of ocean air tousle my fur while the grass weaves into one great tongue beneath my pounding palms. I want my ears to hear the roaring chorus of earthy voices encouraging me to run, run far because I can, now, in this wild, not-body shape that is mine, that is me. I want to press my cheek down to count to distant drumbeats of worldworn hooves, feel them ripple against my face like raindrops

disrupting the surface of a placid lake. I want to lick up the alpine thyme, crane’s bills, Irish roses, lady’s bedstraw, clovers, all the wildflowers - the life essence of the moors - and grin with fuchsia flowers dribbling over my teeth. I want to wake every dawn and find my fur braided by little hands, sparkling with dew and fairy dust like a monstrous pastry. I want to prowl through the forests by starlight and see as though my eyes have poked holes through the veil of night, and I am now privy to all its secrets. I want to track the horizon’s rugged jawline through the wind, my hungry eyes glinting with the reckless abandon of will-o’-wisps. I will bury my burnt, torn skin under a ramshackle cairn - to bury that husk under the same weight the way it once crushed the spirit within. I need to leave that skin behind so I can walk, run, spirit away in my own shape. To be a skin-walker! To shuck off this offending human coat, to roam the unhindered where clicking knees, creased spines, mossy vision, crackling lungs are no longer the prices of sentience. How often do I wish I could break out of this sterile soap bubble I am stuck inside to thrive in the ruthless tenderness of the wild? How often?

Big Shots

James Krusinski

Night came with rain, just like every broken-down thing. From his motel window, Jackson watched the drizzle beat the withered bluestem down into the dirt. He was thinking mean, his scowl settled solemn. Look at the damn rain, he mused. Don’t it know that grass is good as dead. He kept staring at the grey highway until a truck rumbled by and scattered gutter water over the chicories. Like my old man always said. You don’t keep your head above your own dirt, sooner or later, you drown in it good.

Jackson sat down on his motel bed and thought about going to sleep for the night. But the sight of the rain beneath the streetlights stirred his thirst. He thought of the bar just down the road.

His eyes wandered the dim room for a moment, from the faded flower wallpaper to the dusty Bible buried beneath the nightstand. What the hell? He sighed, fastening his work boots. It’ll just be one drink. Tomorrow morning, boss man, he’ll never know nothin. He wandered down the side of the road, shrouded in black against the rain like a shadow drifting across a river. He heard a faint wail of the wind in the pines, the scent of sap and needles almost stirring a memory. But he discarded the thought once he glimpsed the sign for Big Shots. Red neon beckoned to him through last hint of daylight, dying in the distance behind the smokestacks of the auto plant that closed down back in ’09.

As he reached for the bar door, a Dodge going fifteen-

over splattered murky water and dead leaves over his coat.

“Ah shit.” Jackson swore, stomping his feet on the concrete. He’d seen the puddle seconds earlier, deep in the shoulder, right beside the curb. The Dodge couldn’t have hit it unless it’d been aiming there. “Asshole sons of bitches,” he muttered and threw aside the tinted door. Breathing worse curses into his flannel, he strode across the dead bar, swung his legs over a stool, and slammed his hands on the counter as though he owned the place. “Gimme a Sam Adams,” he said. Though gruff, his voice seemed to bellow with only the soft rain and the smacks of billiard balls murmuring in the dimness.

“Thought you were done, bud.” The bartender smirked but reached for the tap.

“I ain’t your bud.” Jackson’s thirsty eyes watched the golden beer foam white in the glass, shimmering against the amber bulb lights. When he couldn’t bear the waiting any longer, he glanced nervous to his side, made eye contact with

a grey-haired man indulging a cigarette beneath the nosmoking sign. The old man said nothing but his stare spoke his contempt, clear as neon through the blue smoke. Hardened eyes glared at Jackson’s neck long after he broke away, then returned to his game of solitaire. Vietnam old-timers, Jackson thought. Think they’re the meanest sons of bitches in town, just ‘cause they made it past the mortars. Still he respected the old man for preserving the silence. On weekdays here the radio never sang and souls rarely carried conversations. They sat and drank and tried to forget about work or family or their own thoughts until the morning.

“Here you are, bud.” He reached for the glass but the bartender pulled it back. “I’m gonna need to see some cash before I exchange my services.”

Rolling his eyes, Jackson took out his wallet and waved a few tens. “Well I’ll be.” The bartender whistled. “Old broke Jack finally managed to save up for something. Must be

some fine-lookers at the motel tonight.” He slid the glass across the counter.

“Go to hell, mac,” Jackson muttered.

“My, my. That ain’t no way to tip your bartender.” The man stepped around the counter and slapped him hard on the back with the cleaning rag. Jackson choked on a long sip of beer, spitting gold on his red flannel while the veteran chuckled over his cards.

“Might want to clean your coat, bud.” The bartender called as he wiped a table. “Looks like you were rollin around in horseshit all day Ugh. Smells like it too.”

Jackson pressed his nose to his collar and inhaled deep. He winced, gagged, as the diesel and petroleum burned in his skull. He couldn’t stand his own scent. Damn auto shop, he swore. Even when he left work he seemed to carry work around with him.

“Shit, mister. This how you treat all your customers?” Jackson glanced at two broad men playing billiards along the far wall. One leaned over the

table in a sharp bridge, struck the cue ball swift as a snipper, and watched the crimson seven roll into a pocket. The other man cursed under his breath, taking a long drink to dull the blow.

“Nah. Only the ones who get so damn gone they pass out over the floor,” the bartender said. “One time twice in the same week.”

“Why’s he back then?” The man who had made the shot rose and brandished the cue stick. His six-three body obscured the yellow lamplight, impotent as a melted candle.

“Oh he comes back all on his own. Every night he says it’s the last night, but sooner or later, here he is. Sure as callin on the devil.” The bartender slapped Jackson on the back again as he returned to the counter. “As far as why I let him in, well, let’s just say a drunk’s good for business in a nothin town.”

The old veteran snickered with the billiards players Jackson bent his head and scowled at the glass, then downed the beer in bitter

gasps. The easy, almost empty feeling rushed over him as his eyes watered and heat rose in his reddened temples. “Another.” He barked at the bartender. “Whatever you say, bud. You’re calling the shots.” As he waited, Jackson’s fingers tap-danced nervous on the rim. Cling-cling, cling-cling. The sound reminded him of the tin cans he used to hang on willow branches outside his daddy’s trailer when he was a kid, his own makeshift windchimes. It’s a June evening out there, he thought. Should be nice for crickets and chimes. He looked at the window blinds, hoping they were out there, but then he remembered the rain and knew he would never hear them that night.

Jackson took a sip from his second beer, then another sip, then another beer, and then kept on drinking long past the time when he knew damn well he should’ve stopped. Sweat dripped down his forehead as though he were back at the auto shop, beneath a Chrysler, scrambling through a

busy shift at three o’clock on a summer afternoon. When he emptied his latest beer, he couldn’t tell if the moisturecame from the glass or his own palm.

“One more?” The bartender asked.

Jackson nodded. “This is my last one.” He smiled childlike. “Promise. Cross my heart Swear to die.” He didn’t know why, but he moved his hand in the sign of the cross.

“Whatever you say, preacher,” the bartender said.

Across the bar the billiards players grew weary with the game and leaned against the table, rubbing chalk on the cue sticks like priests with brittle ashes. “You know, Leroy,” the good shot said. “I reckon I know this feller here. The sweaty bastard with the muddy coat.”

“Yeah. That a fact?”

“I say it is.” He raised his voice for the whole bar to hear his sermon. “Saw him at the VFW, years ago, right when I got out and started workin construction. This feller comes for a meetin but the Desert

Storm boys wouldn’t let him in. Said they ain’t got no respect for what he’s done.” He shook his head with fake pity. “Guess his ex-wife don’t respect him neither.”

Jackson pivoted on his stool. “Say another damn word about me.” His hand trembled on his glass. “Another damn word!”

“You ain’t got the balls, princess.” The good shot smirked. “You ain’t got nothin.”

The next moments came fast and hard—like a gulp, then a hangover. Jackson recalled rising from the stool and staggering towards the billiards table. He glimpsed the glass hurdle from his fingers and shatter against the broad man’s cue stick, beer and shards scattering against the weak yellow light. A gasp, a silence. Then a calloused fist piercing the glare—darkness, haze. Amber bulbs, cigarette smoke. Jackson kneeling before the cue stick, hands on the tiles, palms scathed red in the jaded glass. His ears ringing…

Ringing he swore to God, with windchimes that whispered faint with crickets.

Jackson stared at the tall man’s heels as he recovered his senses. The blur’s ecstasy vanished swift like a liquor shot, but the pounding in his head lingered long. “Like I said. Ain’t good for nothin.” The cue stick jabbed into his ribs. “Just a nothin man.”

Two pairs of construction boots thudded across the tiles and disappeared into the distant rain. The old veteran with the cigarette finished his game of solitaire. As he put on his jacket, he picked the winning card from the deck and flung it at the fallen man. “Try to hold onto your aces, kid,” he muttered on his way out. “Life don’t give you too many.”

Jackson watched the card, a withered ace of diamonds, welt in the spilled beer that no longer shone golden with white foam. As he struggled to his feet, he could only see the beer as dark and colorless, like rain carrying dead leaves down the road into speeding tires.

“Don’t worry, bud, I’ll put the clean-up on your tab.” The bartender laughed as he jerked him towards the door. “See you tomorrow night.”

* * *

Jackson plodded uphill through the ryegrass until his foot struck something in the darkness. A rock, a rabbit hole, he couldn’t tell but it sent him tumbling into the loam.

“Damn it,” he swore. He knew he should’ve taken the road. He wanted to hear the stalks crunch dead beneath his boots, but he only got handfuls of silt and clay. He was about to curse his luck when he recalled a preacher telling him way back that Cain was known for working the soil.

Wiping his hands on his workpants, he rose and stumbled to the motel fence. Jackson kicked open the jammed gate but skinned his leg on the rust. The wound drew blood that gathered like raindrops on his mud stains. He wanted to cuss loud and mean. Not for the pain,

not for the anger even, just because he wanted to wake the sleepers from their quiet nights so they’d hate him, curse him, beat him, call the cops on the ornery old drunk, at it again, give him anything to do but sit in his room and rot in his thoughts.

But a faint scent in the wind silenced him. He breathed in, slow and deep. Staghorn sumacs, rustling with the pines. Just like the thickets that grew between a nameless little river and the cinderblock lot where his daddy kept his trailer. Same scent, same pink buds as on that afternoon over a decade back when Jackson showed his own son that lot, saying “this is where I grew up, boy.” And his son grinning at the rusted tin-can windchimes and hearing the roar of the I-75 overpass and not thinking that any of this made his old man a loser.

Jackson blinked his eyes to kill the recollection and wandered past the motel pool, glowing violet like the haze of the lottery billboards along Route 4. “Damn, Jackie,” a

woman’s voice called to him. “I’d say you’d seen better days.”

Jackson looked up and saw Lorraine leaning against the second-floor banister, a worn Marlboro exhaling smoke in her hand. Her hair rested wet on her shoulders like the neighbors’ laundry drying on the clothesline tied between the windowsill and the rafters.

“Nice to see you too, Lorraine,” he said. “You look like you just swam in the gutter.”

Her eyes lit up for a moment, then fell solemn once more. “No, just a shower,” she said. “Late shift at the depot. Took forever to get Annie to go to bed. And now Aunt Lorraine’s gotta have herself a smoke, otherwise she ain’t gonna sleep a wink.”

“How’s the niece?” He softened his voice, the same way he once talked to his family.

Lorraine yawned. “Young. Too young for me. Love her tons, don’t get me wrong.” She took a ruminative drag from the cigarette. “Guess it’s

better than her bein with her mommy. Lord knows that girl needs to get herself better.”

Jackson picked at the dirt beneath his fingernails, bowing his head, silent.

“You get in another fight tonight, Jackie?”

Jackson glanced at his reflection in the swimming pool. The violet light intensified the fiery scratches on his forehead, the mauve bruises on his cheeks, the swollen darkness around his busted eye. The ruined sight of his body frightened him. As he licked his lips, the iron taste of his dried blood awoke a nausea.

“Guess you could say that. Wasn’t much of a fight. More of a beatin, I’d say.”

“Told you to lay off the booze,” she said. “Lord knows no one ever listens to me.”

“Wasn’t even that drunk, honest to God.” Jackson sighed. “Now last week, when that prick jabbed me with the pool stick, I was gone as hell then. Didn’t even make it back. Took a wrong turn, slept beneath a railroad bridge.”

He tried another peek at his reflection, but he couldn’t find the strength anymore, bowing instead to the holes in his boots. “Tonight I just kept runnin my mouth. Guess I just like startin fights I know there ain’t no way I can win.”

Lorraine watched the smoke fade beside the aimless moths, circling the yellow lamplights long into the cold morning. “War’s over, Jackie,” she said. “How many times I gotta tell you that? We lost. Ran away to the airport with our tails between our legs. And that was years after you and me got kicked out. War’s over. Quit your fightin and go home.”

“Psst. Ain’t got no home no more,” Jackson muttered. “They took away all my benefits. And she—ain’t no way in hell she’ll take me back. Swear on the devil.” He thought of making the sign of the cross, but his hand froze rigid at his side. “Nope. She don’t want a pansy man. And she definitely don’t want a drunk neither.”

Lorraine eyed him stern for a long time. He expected the

hard judgment the tougher vets and the taller civilian men gave him at Big Shots, the auto shop, all around town. But she offered only pity. A shared remorse, maybe. “I know, Jackie.” Her voice came quiet. “They took away my benefits too. I fought their war—then lost every damn thin for not ‘mindin my place.’ But your ex-wife, she ain’t your only home, you know. That boy of yours…”

“There’s nothin there, either, Lorraine.” He shook his head. “Just pretty memories.”

“Maybe. This old town don’t change much—just when stores close and war comes and storms roll in. But I don’t know, I think Annie will understand, when I tell her someday. ‘Least that’s what I hope.” She looked off at the distant lights of the distilleries, imagining they were red stars against the grey nimbus sky.

“Sounds like another pretty story, Lorraine.”

“Maybe. But so’s everythin else people say around here. War stories, bar stories.

Talk’s cheap.” She shrugged. “Only thin I believe is my own truth.” Lorraine blew out the Marlboro and rubbed the smoky end against a tattoo on her forearm, never flinching as the ghost flames singed her skin. She traced the entire tattoo—an oak tree with a name, Heather, written beneath. Then, like a priest, she wiped the white ashes off her skin, watched them fall beyond the balcony, and land on Jackson’s forehead. “Night, Jackie.” She slipped away into her motel room, her home, and closed the door quiet so the child would not wake.

“Night, Lorraine,” he said to no one. Damn. Neighbors all these years and I never once asked her about Heather. He thought of all the times he walked past the cemetery, seeing Lorraine there every Sunday like a churchgoer Lorraine leaning over a tombstone, leaving roses and small American flags. Blowing a kiss in a way you weren’t supposed to kiss a brother or sister in uniform, even when they’re just a stone. He never

said nothing to Lorraine about it. Just let the secret rest beneath the quiet shade of the buckeye trees, blooming golden white. Still should of talked to her though. You sick son of a bitch. He bit down hard on his lower lip, chewing his flesh like the wild mutt his old neighbors kept chained back in the cinderblock lot The iron surged bitter. But he didn’t give a damn. And that’s the same damn reason you walked out. Tammy didn’t care what men said about you. Didn’t care that you were soft. You just drank too much before the war and you drank even more after, all ‘cause you didn’t care enough about her to talk to her about nothin.

Squinting through his swollen eye, he watched a moth soar into a lamp bulb, only to die splattered against the glass. Its remains were just a faint stain beneath the heat and the glare. Damn. I should of gotten real drunk tonight, he thought while he wandered towards the dim stairwell. Oh well.

Another shitty-ass day of work tomorrow. He imagined

more wisecracks, more “hurry up, princess,” more hell from the boss man. Lord, if I hadn’t had to sell off my gun, I swear I’d… Jackson tightened his coat as a storm wind blew in from Route 4 and smacked his face with the early scent of rain. He felt the cigarette ashes that had touched Lorraine and Heather drift off his brow, imagining the white dust floating away with the dead moth, thinking it was strange that they should be scattered and erased together. But he was grateful for the wind, all the same, and for the speeding sedans that shrieked along the state route that night. For he swore if he heard the sumacs and the pines rustling he would turn straight around and drown himself in the violet swimming pool.

* * *

Jackson hunched his spine sharp as he trudged back from the auto shop the next evening. The motel he called home was only two miles down Oakcrest, but he didn’t have

the strength to take the road fast anymore. His bad knee, the one he’d messed up during the war, had been burning like hell ever since that morning when he banged it against the bumper of a Ford. Just bein a dumbass, as usual, he thought. He wandered through the gutter ditch past a few wooden box houses and a small sheep farm with a dying apple orchard. Then, rounding a bend, he came upon St. Martin’s and the crowds flocking for the church festival. Haven’t been here since I was a boy. He peered at the tilt-awhirl through the sycamores. And never for no carnival. My old man—always said no way. Work, only work. Ain’t no time for games.

Jackson shrugged and made his way to the white tents near the Ferris wheel. He bought an old-style bottle of Coke for a dollar, topped it off with a flask he kept hidden in his coat, and smiled weary as the light feeling came over him with the scent of funnel cake. He drifted alone past the teenage couples holding hands or waiting at

the photo booths, the happy families carrying teddy bears and cotton candy. Whenever he felt a lonesome gnaw, he downed a gulp from his Coke and topped it off with liquor again and again.

Jackson had a strong buzz going by the time the countryrock band quieted their guitars. The priest took the stage, joined by a dozen vets in jackets and caps. “Folks,” he preached. “Let’s show our gratitude to America’s heroes.”

Applause filled the crowd, from grade-school kids to retirees. But Jackson stood sullen with his Coke bottle, watching the taller, stronger men. His limbs felt stiff, as though he were back in the war with the heat and the glare rising hellish from the dust. He squinted with his swollen eye at the stage until he recognized one man. Damn it, he swore. It’s that son of a bitch who knocked me with the pool stick last week. He tightened his fists, took a few steps forward as his rigidity slipped away. Jackson knew just what he’d do. Walk right up to the

smug big shot, knock him off the stage with one clean jab. Make him look like a damn fool in front of his wife. Show him who the real man was. Get something back for Lorraine and Heather. Or maybe just his own wounds.

But then Jackson remembered wheezing on the floor of the bar. His body in pain, bowing to the strong man. The ace shriveling in the beer while the bartender laughed. Don’t fool yourself Jackie, he thought. You ain’t no tough guy. Ain’t nothin but broken glass.

Slouching lower, Jackson pushed aside the applauders and trudged far away from the stage. He didn’t glance back at the honored men and women he knew he could never be. Not even a glare at the strong man who’d beat him in any fight. As he turned back onto Oakcrest Road, he watched the Ferris wheel through the sycamores. He didn’t quite know why, but he hoped then that someday his boy would ride that wheel, that he’d float above the leaves and St. Martin’s steeple, far

away from his old man. That’d be nice. Yep. That’d be real somethin.

He stumbled slower through the gutter ditch as the evening shadows slanted long. The workday’s weariness began to settle heavy upon him. He still had a mile and a half back to the motel. Yawning, Jackson wandered into a buckeye grove and leaned his back against a trunk. I’ll just rest for a little while. I’ll sleep off the buzz and then I’ll walk the rest of the way home. As he began to close his eyes, a faint laugh drew his gaze toward a small house through the trees. He glimpsed a young, shirtless boy running across a gravel driveway while his old man sprayed him with a hose. “It’s rainin, Daddy!” The boy smiled as the scent of sumac and pines floated like a spirit through the water. Just need me some crickets and windchimes, Jackson thought as sleep came. Then I’ll be good again, the way I used to be.

Cargo Pants

Fabrice Uwihirwe

I was vehemently opposed to the cargo pants. Even to this day, I find they fit my skinny body awkwardly, like oversized pants from the late nineties, or a woman wearing her partner’s oversized shirt after a sweaty, passionate night. I was already insecure about my small frame and the pants did nothing but accentuated it further.

But at the time she wasn’t hearing it. With a wide grin and bright eyes, she exclaims, “Dude, they look good on you!”

I squint at her with a look of distrust, then view myself again through the Discount Village Thrift Store mirror. She was definitely lying. No doubt about it.

I looked like a child trying on their father’s wardrobe. I could already see myself stepping and tripping on the bottom hems until the beige color was soiled into a dirt brown. It wasn’t until days later that she would introduce me to cuffing.

“I don’t know,” I say dismissively, turning to go back to the dressing room.

I feel her hand grip my forearm, and I begrudgingly look back at her. “What?”

“Are you getting them? Please tell me you’re getting them.”

I look back at the mirror, trying my hardest to understand what in the world made her think these suited me. Eventually, I sigh and give her a defeated look. “You’re serious?”

She furiously nods her head. This time, even her usual devilish smirk is nonexistent. She really means it.

“Fine, I’ll get them. But I don’t think I’ll be wearing them a lot if I’m being honest.”

Two years later, hindsight would see me as the liar that day. Now most parts of me are molded by her, her handprint indelible on my essence.

Before You Start Your Day

Drew Morgan

The mornings I spent on the porch with my wife were beautiful, and I hated them. I hated that I hated them. I hated that even though the summer lingered well into September, filling each morning with warm breeze and fresh blooms, all my body screamed at me to do was to walk to the car and drive away. Sitting there, trying to make conversation with Alejandra (still in her pajamas despite also having to work today), was like pulling back a slingshot- the longer we sat, the more willpower it took me to remain seated.

I did not blame Alejandra for our new morning ritual. “All I ask is five minutes before you start your day.” This is what she told me during the first week of the semester. I had found her awake much earlier than she needed to be

for her own job at the library. She asked quietly at first, and insisted more when I began to tell her that I didn’t want to be late to campus. Her eyes were red and though her breath was normal, I saw her fist shaking by her side, and supposed she had been feeling sentimental. We were at the age now where people we knew were dying and it wasn’t considered a tragedy; it was just life. A childhood friend of Alejandra’s had died from cancer, which prompted Alejandra to begin getting all of the regular tests and appointments, including a mammogram that she had the day before. I could tell that a part of her believed that somehow the cancer would find its way to her next.

So no, Alejandra was not in the wrong. I had expected our visits to the porch to

subside after a while, but it had become a habit. It wasn’t that I had work to do, because I always finished what I needed to do the day before. It was that I knew that there would be work to do. This fact unsettled me. The moment I stepped foot off the porch, I would be stepping into a roaring river where I would be thrown back into university life: pitches, meetings, classes, research, office hours. Waiting for five minutes on the bank of that river was excruciating, watching others drive by to their own places in the world, already a million things on their minds and their to-do lists. With nothing on my plate for five minutes, I was convinced that I was starving.

So, despite knowing that the five minutes would not go by any faster, I often found myself snapping my fingers for more time. Over the years, I had gotten good enough at it that if Alejandra wasn’t looking directly at me, she wouldn’t have noticed anything was off. Of course, Alejandra didn’t know about my snapping, and neither did anyone else.

When I had discovered that my snapping would slow down time around me early in my undergrad years, I had never looked back. So, on the mornings where the five minutes on the porch were particularly unbearable, I snapped and got a head start on the day, checked emails, adding to my to-do list, and getting done what I could from my chair. Somehow, the things I touched were not subject to the slowed time, so I could still use the internet.

On this particular morning, while in snapped time, I noticed that Alejandra had begun saying something when I heard her start to draw in a deep breath. This meant that she was thinking. When I snapped again and her breath finished in real time, she asked me if this would be my last year. This, of course, I had been promising her and myself for some time.

The idea of retiring had been on my mind for years. The astronomy department, of course, didn’t know that I had all the time in the world in which to do work.

But when one of your professors has an uncanny ability to get impossible amounts of work done and still have free time, what else is there to do but give him more work and more opportunities? And when he continues to do this year after year, using his research to bring more prestige to the department, what else is there to do but give him tenure? Over the years, my annual meetings with the dean of the College of Sciences to go over my contract for the next year had gotten shorter and shorter. At first, I spent half an hour or more looking down into the eyes of the dean, a short and stern man who sniffed out slackers. Slowly, the meetings were only five minutes long. Then, last May, I walked into his office to find the dean gone, the contract on the desk and a note that read, “See you in the fall!”

I turned to Alejandra, who was waiting for my answer. The sun had peaked over the trees and caught her face perfectly. The grey was beginning to show in her dark hair,

but the light in her eyes was fully there. I wondered how much time I’d already lost.

“You remember how you wanted to go to the Netherlands?” I said. “I think we should go. Next summer, after I retire.”

When she smiled, I knew that I would keep the promise this time. * * *

I spent the next weeks mulling over how to approach the dean with my decision. I knew that they would do anything in their power to keep me, as they’d been doing for years. One more project, one more research trip, one more class, one more, one more. The solution, though, came during lunch one day.

Because of my efficiency, the astronomy department felt comfortable giving me more classes over the years. From the moment I stepped on campus until the moment I left, I was teaching classes, running meetings, in office hours, monitoring the observatory at nights for the undergraduate students, and

any other thing that could be reasonably crammed in my scheduled. I was often left only with the fifteen allotted minutes to get from one place to the next. I often did these walks during snapped time, sometimes snapping as soon as the last student had walked out of the door. The students on the sidewalks moved as though wading through waist-high water, and I walked comfortably past others that were, from their perspective, speeding by on their bikes. By the time I reached my destination, less than a minute had passed. I never bothered to stop and do the on how much time passed for myself compared to others during snapped time, but I knew I was good enough that I could pass by someone undetected if I didn’t linger.

The one moment I did have free, though, was lunch. There was a quiet spot on the edge of campus that was less popular with the students. I stared out the window as I waited for my food to come, knowing that snapping would only make the wait longer and

myself hungrier. There was a student on a bike waiting for the sign to use the crosswalk. Coming from his left, though, was a car evidently trying to slip by before the light was fully red. It became apparent that the car wouldn’t make it. The biker had his eyes ahead, waiting for the signal. Still, the car did not slow as the biker began making his way across the street.

But they did not crash. I heard a snap, and the scene slowed just moments before the car would have hit the biker. Yes, I heard the snap, because it wasn’t me. While the rest of the café I was in was still in slow motion, I saw someone a few tables forward stand up in real time. Or, I supposed it was my real time. He had been facing the same direction, so all I saw was the back of his head. I watched as he ran to the crosswalk, moved the biker all the way to the other side, and come back to his seat in the café. Before he sat down, he finally made eye contact with me. There was a feeling of confusion, then

relief, then amazement that passed between us. I could tell that we both thought the same thing.

I’m not the only one. * * *

Later, he told me his name was Stephen. The reason he looked familiar was because he was a new faculty member, and as he reminded me, I vaguely remember him introducing himself in meetings and seeing him in the hallway of the faculty building. He had an energy that i missed. I was unsure if I would still have the strength to drag the biker to the side of the road.

He told me that he was a big fan of my work in exoplanet research and that one of the reasons he’d chosen to come was the chance to work with me. It was then, that a terrible idea came to me. Sitting in front of me was a new department member with my same field of research at heart, and on top of that, he was the only other person that could handle my workload. He could slow time too. He called it slothing, though, because he

said it made others seem like sloths. We both agreed that “snapping” made more sense.

It took some convincing to get the dean on my side. He peered over his glasses towards me. “I’m not sure, David,” he said, “how do we know that he can do what you do?

I mean, he just got here this year. We have a whole list of faculty that would be dying to pick up some of your research, lord knows you have some to spare. Why him?”

“Yes, of course the whole department wants to be on par with me. But why haven’t they? They’ve tried, that’s for sure. Yes, I’m serious. This kid-

“’Kid?’ He’s in his thirties,” the dean interrupted.

“Compared to me, he’s a kid. But, think about it. The one thing I have in common with this kid is time. I always find the time for things, and Stephen has his whole career ahead of him. Sure, offload some of my work around the department to other faculty, but I’ll get to choose what goes to Stephen.”

And so it was that Stephen and I made time to meet daily at the café for lunch. As it turned out, we never lacked the time necessary for these long meetings. I began walking him through my work. There were various components he needed to balance. I gave him a tour of the observatory, I brought him to meetings with the different undergraduate clubs for which I was the advisor. We met with the graduate and doctorate students that I advised.

I began getting the sense, though, that Stephen was overwhelmed, and I asked him about it one day at the café.

“It’s just...” he considered his words for a moment. “You have literally all the time in the world, and you couldn’t think of a better use for it than doing work?”

“And I suppose you expected me to become the world’s most successful robber? Walking in and out in blink of an eye and making my getaway on foot?” I replied. This got a chuckle out of him.

“You haven’t gotten tired of it? I’ve travelled for free, I’ve caught up on sleep when I needed to, I’m never late to anything unless I sleep in, I am the fastest soccer player on my team because I’m able to control it just enough that it looks that way to others. I’m not sure if I want to give that up for work.”

I considered what he said, and I found truth. The snap had first come to me in my undergraduate years. I was leaving a study room in the early morning hours and found that it was pouring outside. The snap I made was in frustration, but it quickly turned to amazement when I saw each individual raindrop descending to the ground as though they were feathers. I saw lightning slither across the sky. In that moment, despite the wonder, the only thing that occurred to me was that I wouldn’t have to stay up late to work anymore.

I told him this story, and I told him that I did see the gift in it. I told him about using the snap to linger in

happy moments a little longer, such as when my son, Manuel, took his first steps. I would soon stop doing this, though, because a beautiful moment is bound to snap when stretched for too long.

Stephen and I fell into a rhythm of work, and his enthusiasm returned, to my great relief.

While our son, Manuel, was home for Christmas, I noticed that he was uneasy around me. He pulled into the driveway that morning as Alejandra and I sat on the porch, bundled up in coats and blankets. We had a perfectly good fireplace, but Alejandra was a creature of habit. Manuel hugged us tightly and made us come inside.

It wasn’t until I took off my hat and scarf that Manuel’s expression changed. He seemed shocked and confused. He looked as though he meant to say something, but did not. The moment passed, but would not leave my mind, especially as I caught him giving my sideways glances the rest of

the day. Manuel was much more tender than I remember. He had outgrown his desire for independence, and now that he was settled down and had a girlfriend, it seemed that he visited us more and more. Each time, he made sure to help with housework or projects that we had neglected. He did heavy lifting for us, complaining that we should call him if we needed help. We made a habit leaving heavy things in the garage for the times we knew he would visit so that he could feel helpful. Of course, we could do it on our own, but this was not the point.

Today, though, his care had kicked up another notch. He was serving us coffees and making us snacks in our own home. If we got up to do something, he would jump up from his chair and see what we needed. Once or twice, it seemed as though he were ready to catch us as though either of us had trouble walking. We realized why when it came time to open presents.

Between three adults, this only took about ten minutes. By the end of the exchanges, Manuel’s knee was bouncing.

“What’s the matter, Manny?” I asked him. He made a gesture for us to wait, then left the room. When he returned, he had an envelope addressed to both of us.

Handing it to us, he said, “Now, Marina could not make it to Christmas this year, because she wanted to tell her own parents on her own. I wanted her to be here, but she insisted that it would be more personal to do with our parents.”

Before opening the envelope, we knew what was inside. Our son was going to be getting married. We hugged him even tighter than before, both Alejandra and I shedding tears. This birthed discussions about who was invited and where it would be held. He told us that it would be soon, in March. It would be a small celebration with family and close friends, and it would be in town.

I thought that this

announcement accounted for Manuel’s uneasiness. After a while, Alejandra went to our room for a nap after complaints of pain and weariness. I found Manuel by the fireplace in the living room. He was in Alejandra’s rocking chair and sipping on a coffee. His eyes met mine as I sat, and I thought I saw fear. He asked if we were doing okay.

“Of course,” I answered, “Why wouldn’t we be?”

He sighed. “I don’t know. I just- I feel like I’m seeing things. With mom going down for a nap just now and those symptoms she complained of, I got nervous.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. We’re just getting old.”

I saw realization slide across Manuel’s face. “I think that’s it, dad. I didn’t see it at first, but when I got here, I realized how old you look.”

“Well, hey now, just remember that you’re inheriting these genes, kid.” A soft laugh escaped his lips.

“The last time I visited was in the summer. It looks

like you’ve aged another five years since then. How does that make sense? Mom looks relatively the same, but each time I see you, it feels like you’ve already begun slipping away. What is going to happen when I see you in March? Will you already have a cane? Or maybe I’m just crazy and nervous about my parents getting older.”

Manuel was not wrong. His comment hung over my head the rest of that day and the next, even after Manuel left. I noticed that Manuel had posted about his engagement on FaceBook, and I started scrolling through the photos on his profile. I came across a photo of the two of us from Christmas a couple years ago. In it, Manuel looked almost the same, the only noticeable difference was his choice in hairstyle. As for me, I looked ten years younger with thick, brown hair and a bright smile. The man next to Manuel might as well have been a different person. * * *

It wasn’t until weeks

later that Alejandra and I could go shopping for the wedding. In truth, it had slipped my mind. Between my sessions with Stephen and my regular workload, the extra time that the snap awarded me did not save me from fatigue. I’d found myself taking naps during snapped time, which I’d only discovered that I could do by accident. I had fallen asleep while working at the café.

In my mind, there was plenty of time to go shopping for clothes for the wedding. I continued to put it off with this idea comforting me. Yet, for all the extra time that I possessed, life still found a way to creep up on me. Suddenly, it was February, and Alejandra brought it up during Valentine’s Day dinner that we needed to go, and that we needed to go together.

The day that we went, Alejandra was dragging me out of the house with an uncontrollable grin on her face. For the life of me, I couldn’t understand the excitement in dress shopping. We went around to too many stores to count, each

time I insisted that it looked beautiful, but she said that I wasn’t really paying attention.

She was right. I wasn’t able to bring my laptop, because it would be too obvious, but as we shopped I snapped while she was in the fitting room to answer emails on my phone and view my lesson plans. In truth, there wasn’t much to do, but I was searching for it.

On the drive home, Alejandra’s excitement had turned sour. I could feel the tension, but tried to appear unbothered.

“Our son is getting married,” she said without looking over.

I scoffed at this. “I know that, my love. That’s why we are here.”

“I’m just saying it out loud, because it seems that you’ve either forgotten or don’t care. The whole day, your mind has been somewhere else. And don’t deny it, because I can see it.”

I said nothing, because clearly she was right.

She continued, “You

know what the worst part is? I can’t even remember the last time that we went out together, not counting Valentine’s Day. The only reason we are out here, is because we have an obligation to.”

All I could do was whisper that I was sorry.

“Don’t be sorry, David. Be more present. I can’t wait to go to the Netherlands in a few months, but I wonder if you think that you can keep me waiting forever.”

It was her last comment that pained me the most.

“Sometimes I wish there was a way to just slow things down and have time for the two of us.”

She fell asleep soon after, something that was becoming more frequent and worrying. oOn the pile of pending promises to her, taking her to the doctor was one I added to the top.

* * *

Stephen’s enthusiasm scared me. I texted him to meet me at the café, and when he came in he was telling me all about the book that he was

working on. Apparently, the university would sponsor him to travel wherever he’d like to gather data on worldwide efforts to search for exoplanets capable of sustaining human life. It included a lot of philosophy and ethics work, so it would be written alongside professors from the humanities department.

I forced him to slow down, though. I saw the same hunger in him that I recognized when I’d first met him at the faculty meeting last summer.

“I’m going to break this to you slowly,” I told him. “I think that maybe you should... take a step back from so much work.”

He looked confused. “What do you mean?” He asked.

“I mean that you’re young. There is no rush, and there are things to do outside of working. You said it yourself, just a few months ago. You have all the time in the world and then some more on top of that. Don’t be like me.”

While he considered

my point, I kept talking.”How old do you think I am?”

“Well, by the looks of it, I’d say late seventies. I’m not sure, I never asked.”

“I’m 55.” Those words hung in the air. “If you overuse your snap, you will be accelerating your own death. You will miss out on things. You will forget what real time feels like. This is a lonely life, Stephen. I suggest you step back before the university can take hold of you. They act like they can’t function without me, but they’ll find a way. I just don’t want that way to be you.”

He mulled this over for a moment, gazing out the window and the people walking around us in real time. “No.” He told me.

“No?”

“No. I’m not going to let you take this opportunity away from me.” Stephen pressed his lips tightly together.

“Stephen, no, that’s not what I’m saying. I want to retire.”

“So leave me out of it.” Stephen was out of the café

before I could stop him.

The two of us had figured out that time won’t slow for the other person unless we are in the same vicinity. I waited until I though Stephen was far enough away before I snapped. I hustled all the way to the dean’s office, only stopping to snap again when I was outside his door. That way, I wouldn’t have to deal with the secretary or sit in the waiting room.

He seemed suprised when I walked in without knocking. “Hello, David. Did we have an appointment?”

Standing there, I realized I hadn’t thought about the consequences of what I was going to say. Before I could stop myself, I told him. “I want to stay. I’m not retiring early.”

The Dean was taken aback, but it quickly turned to a grin. “I’m not sure what made you change your mind, but I’m glad to hear it.”

I made my way to my own office, where A few boxes had already been packed. I fell into my desk chair and wept.

Manuel got married on a sunny spring day. Alejandra woke up that morning sneezing from the pollen and sore in the same spots as before. Despite this, she managed to get ready and we both made it to the church downtown.

At noon, in a church filled with the people he loved the most, my son was married. From where we sat, I saw him trying to hide his trembling hands as Marina walked down the aisle. Alejandra blew him kisses and we both reached out to squeeze his hand as Manuel and Marina walked back down the aisle.

I promised myself not to snap on the wedding day, a promise which I kept until the reception afterwards. When my wife was invited to the dance floor for the mother-son dance, I snapped. I only slowed the dance enough to make to stretch out the moment. For once, I didn’t move from my seat, bring out my phone, or let my mind wander. The music slowed and muffled, and my wife and son seemed to float across the dance floor.

My whole world somehow fit perfectly onto a bright dance floor in the middle of Spring.

When I resumed real time, however, it became apparent something was wrong.

Alejandra stumbled a couple times, putting her weight on Manuel for support. Her eyelids drooped and exhaustion set in. She was able to make it through the dance, and faced the applause with indifference. She returned to her seat next to me. Alejandra barely finished saying that she felt tired before collapsing onto the floor. * * *

It was raining when we returned from the hospital. Alejandra asked to sit on the porch and listen to the rain. While I left her there to make us coffee, I replayed the conversation with the doctor.

He had confirmed our worst fear: she had breast cancer. She had stopped going to the doctor so frequently as the fear from her friend dying in the summer had subsided. Her last checkup had been months ago and her last mammogram

was in September.

“Her mammogram last September must have missed it, which means that the cancer had had time to grow for well over a year.” The doctor told us. It was a particular malicious bout of cancer, and so far did not bode well based on their initial tests. “We will, of course, recommend treatments, of which chemotherapy is an option. I will warn you both that it will be a long and difficult process, whichever route you take, but it will ultimately be your own decision.”

The rain continued pounding as we sat in silence. Alejandra’s calm demeanor is what hurt the most. I wanted her to scream at me and hit me. I wanted her to be furious at me the way I was with myself. At any point in the last few months, I could have done something. If not for her, for us. Now, there was no way I could tell her this. I would take it to my grave.

I breathed heavily, trying to hold back. When I couldn’t bear it anymore, I snapped my fingers before

releasing a scream the came from the innermost pit of my stomach. I screamed until I ran out of breath, took a gulp of air, and screamed some more. I felt my vocal chords getting hoarse and my face getting hot. When I finally stopped, wiping away tears and snot, my heart rate still returning to normal, I realized that it was quiet. Utterly and completely silent. The rain had stopped. Not just slowed, but completely stopped. As if someone had taken a photo, the rain was suspended in midair, the trees stood like statues, and Alejandra stared past me with an eerily calm look of acceptance.

I leaned back in my chair, still in frozen time, and held onto Alejandra’s hand. It was stiff and strange. The doctor had not given her a death sentence, but Alejandra seemed to treat it as such. Holding onto her half-dead hand, I considered my options. Did I want to spend an eternity in pain, stretching it out more and more?

The rain hovered, still waiting for my permission. For

the last time, I snapped my fingers and hoped the rain would wash the years I’d already lost.

“Love in the Time of Corona.” Kyla Goksoy, pp. 98

ART

“American Robin” Chloe Onorato

“Flâneur”

Kyla Goksoy

“Light in the Darkest of Times”

Kyla Goksoy

“Love in the Time of Corona”

Kyla Goksoy

“Naco’m”

Kyla Goksoy

“Stone Seahorse” Chloe

Seahorse.” Chloe Onorato, pp.102

CONTRIBUTORS

Joy Agwu is currently a junior, expected to graduate in the Class of 2024. She is pursuing a double major in English and Philosophy, with a minor in Constitutional Studies. A passionate bibliophile and aspiring wordsmith, Joy draws inspiration from Elizabeth Acevado, Tracy Deonn, and Jane Austen—some of her favorite authors.

Rose Androwich is a sophomore majoring in creative writing at Saint Mary’s College. The Getaway aims to describe the feeling of being trapped within a struggle and feeling unable to get through it.

Clare Barloon is a Junior studying Art History, Global Affairs, and French. She spends her time procrastinating on her work by drawing and writing poetry. Her greatest ambition is to succeed enough at one of these hobbies that she needs to find another way to procrastinate. Some of her favorite poets include Richard Silken, Fernando Pessoa, and Anne Carson.

Taylor Batilo is a junior majoring in Chemical Engineering, residing in Fisher Hall, and hailing from Carmel, Indiana. You may read his poems in this edition of Re:Visions, or you may not.

Caleb Douglas Cain was born on the north-east side of central Indiana on January 28, 1991. He received his primary and secondary education at private Christian schools, Traders Point Elementary and Covenant Christian High School, and attended Purdue University briefly in the 2009-10 school year. At present he is a grateful participant in the Moreau College Initiative at the Westville Correctional Facility.

KC Castillo KC is a first-generation Garifuna-Honduran poet, designer, and artist. He is studying Industrial Design and Latino

studies at the University of Notre Dame. KC recently launched his own poetry website, kcexpressions.org.

Michael A. Chaney is a sophomore at Holy Cross College’s Moreau College Initiative at Westville Correctional Facility. Throughout his incarceration, poetry has served as an avenue of freedom for Michael. Poetry lifts him to a place outside of the cage enclosed around him. Through verse, he is free.

Katie Clem is a sophomore at Saint Mary’s College pursuing a self- designed major titled Arts Innovation and Leadership with minors in Creative Writing, Religious Studies and Theology, and Justice Studies. She enjoys writing about themes of embodiment, trauma, healing, nature, spirituality, and the beauty and pains of ballet.

Nathaniel Dodson is a sophomore at Holy Cross College with the Moreau College Initiative at Westville Correctional Facility. He enjoys playing the banjo and violin. Through the ARTS255 Photography II class, he experienced the enjoyment of capturing the world in pictures and adding poems that match the deeper theme resonating within him. His professors have nurtured his creativity.

Kayla Goksoy My camera has been my coping device, the shutter a boundary I can create between myself and everything else. My camera has been a microscope, the lens a way to focus—literally—on the tiniest details of the world. My camera has been an escape, the unexposed film an excuse to do something new, to visit somewhere new, to stop and stare at clouds.

Ariana Howe was raised in Indiana and is studying English and

Religious Studies at Saint Mary’s College. Describing the anxiety which builds from shattered relationships, the character of her piece experiences a desire to regrow as they reflect on their naivety in the past.

James Krusinski is a senior at the University of Notre Dame and is majoring in English and political science. He is a Brennan Scholar and a member of the Glynn Family Honors Program. He enjoys writing fiction and will be pursuing his M.A. in English next year.

Julia Marine is a rising senior biology major minoring in art history. When not in research lab or catching up on work with friends, Julia enjoys painting and drawing for friends and family, playing cello, trying new kinds of food, spending time outside, and FaceTiming her dog Willow.

Drew Morgan is a senior from Tennessee studying English & Spanish with a minor in TESOL. He enjoys playing soccer, going to Spanish mass, saying “y’all”, and being an Arsenal fan. He plans to pursue a career in libraries or publishing after graduation.

Molly O’Toole is a Junior studying English and Peace Studies from Arlington, Massachusetts. She likes drinking coffee, jesting with her friends, and writing poems about bodies of water. She lives in Welsh Family Hall.

Chloe Onorato is an English major with a Creative Writing Honors Concentration and Studio Art minor at Notre Dame. She has published her work in Re:Visions and The Juggler and enjoys the Mustard Creative Writing Club. Her dream is to be a professor who writes and illustrates her own books.

Christina Onorato is a senior BFA Visual Communication Design major and Business Economics minor studying at the University of Notre Dame. Artistic expression has always been an important part of her life. She loves digital media and design, drawing, painting, photography, and singing.

Madeline Prugh is a sophomore electrical engineering student with a bad habit of writing poems instead of doing her circuits homework. She would like to thank her mother for making her into a writer and her best friend, Keelin Gaughan, for convincing her that writing and sharing poetry is cool (and necessary).

JP Spoonmore is a senior majoring in Film, Television, and Theatre with a minor in Irish Language and Literature. He is the head of the Observer Video Unit and the videographer for The Fisher Regatta. His editing station and camera take up his entire desk. Very little homework is accomplished

Fabrice Uwihirwe is a rising senior who spends most of his time watching anime and procrastinating in bed. During the slivers of time he’s awake and active, he likes to work on music, write in various forms, and is recently practicing photography. Anything to avoid his Economics problem sets, honestly.

Joy Agwu

Rose Androwich

Clare Barloon

Taylor Batilo

Caleb Douglas Cain

KC Castillo

Michael A. Chaney

Katie Clem

Nathanial Dodson

Kyla Goksoy

Ariana Howe

James Krusinski

Julia Marine

Drew Morgan

Molly O’Toole

Chloe Onorato

Christina Onorato

Madeline Prugh

JP Spoonemore

Fabrice Uwihirwe