To Greg for guiding us through the gap left in every good poem; to Kerry for toughing it out through our translations of Old English; to Christina for crafting Victorian literature scholars out of us; to Nat for sanctifying semicolons; to Maura for mending the child in each of us; to Tim for carrying the torch: without you, there would be no us.
With love,
The Onion River Review Staff Class of 2024
The Onion River Review is the literary and visual arts review of Saint Michael’s College in Colchester, Vermont. Edited entirely by undergraduates, it has been published at least once a year since 1973. Full text can be found on the databases of EBSCO Publishing.
The review welcomes submissions from anyone in the Saint Michael’s community, including alumni. Submissions should be sent to onionriver@smcvt.edu. For further information, go to http://www.smcvt.edu/onionriver/.
Onion River Review
Two Thousand Twenty-Four Issue
river run by
Rosemary Marr
Christopher “Cito” DeNegre
Erin Madden
Sophia Meimaris
Anyssa Logan
Erin Boyd
Megan Koren
Editors’ Note
As with onions and ogres: art has layers. It is under a careful eye that we examine each layer -from color choice to comma splice- and discuss the aspects that make a piece noteworthy. The primary function of art -as taught by our own advisor, Greg Delanty- is to renew the world while leaving a gap for critical analysis and interpretation. Though, equally as important, art often expresses something deeper, more significant, what is often called “the human experience”.
While preparing the Onion River Review this year we spent upwards of thirty hours peeling through submission after submission; our eyes watered as we cut and chopped. At least, this was the case for those of us who have sown and harvested year after year, and now lay our gardener gloves down for the last time.
It is with this note, we express our gratitude to our community that has allowed us to change and thrive. This issue of the ORR returns to its roots and celebrates fifty-one years of Onionhood (a term coined by the late professor of English Will Marquess) at Saint Michael’s College. The 2024 Onion River Review cover collages four covers from the first years of our publication. In doing so, we recognize the voices of Saint Michael’s College students and community members from the beginning to the end and thereafter.
Yours in eternal Onionhood, The 2024 Onion River Review Staff
“What we know of the world comes to us through words, or, to look at it from the other direction, when we write a sentence, we create a world, which is not the world, but the world as it appears within a dimension of assessment.”
~ Stanley Fish, How to Write a Sentence: and How to Read One
Only Available in Select Markets
Jeff HeneburyThe boy is eating stolen lobster in the walk-in freezer at Panera Bread. The cold felt manageable and refreshing when he first walked in, but it becomes less so the longer he stays in the freezer. The lobster was part of a customer order that got canceled halfway through—allergies? They didn’t realize there was mayo? whatever the reason, it didn’t make it down the line—and that left an abandoned half-made lobster roll, plus the rest of the meat residing in its little plastic baggie. He took it and he hid it and now he’s wolfing it down.
He’s never had lobster before this. When his mom sees it at restaurants, she scoffs, shakes her head, and says, “Can you believe it? Twenty dollars for a roll full of butter, mayonnaise, and a terrifying sea insect! You know they used to feed these to prisoners? People threw riots.” She throws up her hands, pretending to chant. “No more lobster! No more lobster!” Then she bugs her eyes out and shakes her head in wonder. “But nowadays, you can charge an arm and a leg for it. Rich people will really fall for anything, huh?”
This story had always made the boy and his younger sister giggle. Those stupid rich people! As the boy has gotten older, though, his laughter has become forced. This was a story designed to make the family feel good about always ordering the cheapest thing on the menu. Chicken tenders taste better when you can think yourself clever for ordering it.
The freezer hums at a magnificent volume when the coolant is flowing; when it’s finished, the boy is left in a silence so complete it’s disconcerting. It’s never this quiet. Not at home, not at school, and certainly not at Panera, where the always-high dishwasher listens to classic rock on the radio at full volume, where the older workers brag and swear and flirt. The boy is fourteen and keeps his head down. He’s slow; the sandwich order tracker on the screen above his station is always turning yellow, then purple, then blinking purple, which is the worst of all. When it’s blinking purple, Mike the assistant manager comes over and makes
the boy feel bad. He’s trying. It’s just a lot of sandwiches all at once, is the thing. But now it’s so quiet. It’s strange and a bit scary, but he also sort of likes it. And he really likes the lobster roll.
The door is large, made completely out of gleaming steel; the boy takes another bite and admires it, because there’s nothing else to look at in here besides bags upon bags of frozen chicken. Really, when he thinks about it, it’s probably the most impressive door he’s ever seen in his life. In European History they’re learning about cathedrals, how some of them take centuries to build, and those things have really impressive doors. But he hasn’t been to Europe, has he? He’s barely left the South Shore. If a manager were to open this big beautiful door right now he’s toast, kaput, fired. You can’t hear any sounds from the other side of the door, it shuts out all noise, someone could be walking towards the boy right now and he’d have no idea. He has to eat quickly—they think he’s on a bathroom break. He’s considered taking up smoking purely because the smokers get longer breaks than the non-smokers. He has to eat fast, he knows. But the boy also wants to draw the experience out.
They’re very careful with the lobster here. The meat for each roll is weighed to the gram on a little scale kept exclusively for this purpose. Each roll gets one claw, which is supposed to stick out of the end of the lobster roll, which supposedly delights the customer. Hardly anyone orders them. Who orders a lobster roll from Panera Bread, all the workers wonder, scoffing. But eating in the freezer, feeling the crisp hot buttery roll against the cold lobster and the heavily advertised lemon tarragon mayonnaisebased dressing and all of combining in order to make contact with his tongue, the boy thinks, I would order them. If I could, I’d order these every day.
He's fishing the very last piece out of the plastic baggie when the door starts to open, and just from the hair on the opening hand, he knows that it’s going to be Mike. They stare at each other for a moment; Mike is clearly astonished that the boy had it in him to do this. The boy is in trouble. This money helped out his mom, and he always got to bring leftovers home, and it was walking distance from his house, and what were
they going to do now? But at the moment all he can think of are those wonderful tall doors on the cathedrals of Europe, lovingly carved and decorated by masters over the course of decades. They looked so beautiful; he wants to see them in person. Mike is already starting to yell but the boy doesn’t hear his words. He wants to travel to Europe and experience beautiful things and eat more lobster rolls as soon as possible. He is almost certainly getting fired, but something inside him is awake, now. For the first time, he is hungry for more.
june 1 deep river CT 2021
C.H. de Negre
no movement sits over the surface of the lakegnats hover in swarms above the waters face my face in the unbrokenness hanging near the debris and floating membraneafter three days of rain and one day of rest (and on the seventh day He...).
rope through the water, the painting of my chin and cheeks and smile splattered across the reflection disappears.
tying the rope and tired hands. body tired
“these muscles haven’t been used in a while” embarrassed and slumped over, forgot it was there (couldn’t sleep, hallucinating we weren’t the only two in the room my mind was the farthest thing from the breathing the day after the funeral);
at work now haunted by images I can only see in the water above the faded sunken haze of the ropes edge when it falls into the lake the waters depth could be forty fathoms deep and i’d just watch that rope sink while I tied the boat to the dock and then untied and then tied the dock again but this time to the buoy.
the engine hums now and cuts the surface and any hope of gathered reflection of a rope swing or a young oak.
now gliding over the water dreaming of Keoka1, my rest soon to be
we’re all going Nowhere, nearly being Nobody.
1 Keoka Lake is a small lake in the town of Waterford, Oxford County, Maine, United States. It is south of Waterford Flat and northeast of Waterford City.
Animals are swarming the produce section, yipping about dinner and cooing about their children, making a watering hole out of the Gala apples.
A lion is in line at the deli, his thick mane rustles with the breeze as he waits to ask for a half pound of roast beef.
In aisle six, a baby gorilla is hanging on his mother's arm, his own personal jungle gym, as she eyes the shelves for the best-priced can of baking powder.
“Would you like your receipt?” the cashier hisses. I grab the leafy paper and make my way through the mist.
More of Carmarthen
Anna McNulty
On Hard-Determinism
Rosemary MarrPeaches in the woodstove vent, Houdini under the fridge, Muggy murdered by the feline fiend.
Lolly in the drain, Pop still running, Snowball never found.
If the head can escape the bars of the cage, the body will follow.
If the head ends up in hell, if the head ends up in heaven, whether the wheel keeps spinning, physics or philosophy,
hamsters never live long anyway.
Thin Places
JoAnna B. EastonAt seven I held eyes with a red fox the diaphanous veil between worlds twisted and turned in an invisible wind.
I’m half-Irish. Are heaven and earth less than three feet apart in thin places as Celtics say? Not sure I hold to that. Wind, spirit, breath…all one?…Sure.
My habit of walking to Pop Shrams, our recreation park, began at six. Green lemonade, trampolines, mini golf, and archery all mine for just a few quarters.
Halfway around the block, through woods, across a creek on a rickety wooden bridge, out of the small box called family, where I won quarters in early morning poker games.
I wasn’t allowed to go alone, but I did. Walking since birth with no one beside me, a wave of defiant zeal grew to a tempest wooing me into those woods, onto that bridge, to the fox.
Initiated then and there near a mossy brook, I slide from one mind state to another drawn in through the vertical black pupils and yellowy eyes of the wily fox.
Later, at twenty, leaning against a red ivy wall I felt a deeper call, a landslide of sorts
beyond Delta and Gamma into the river, further away from the shore I heard the music of the spheres.
Maybe it is always there, less than three feet away? Then why step only sometimes over that threshold into that beneficence? Is it hidden from humans on purpose, who cannot live so far from the shore? Does the fox live there? Do the angels?
In my seventies, I walk toward thin places, gathering my skirts, hiking up Mt. Abe, the sky hovers close to the summit. The air is thin, the light, luminescent.
I fall again through a hole in time. I loosen my vice grip on life, get wind-tossed, and remember my first freedom.
Good Talk Ian Trance
The Journey of Knots: Tied To Whom Zamiyah Romero
Among the birds and among the trees, four children walk along the street. They giggle they laugh they talk, so sweet, till one of them looks down at their feet.
The little one yells, “Hey wait up!” And one of them puts down their cup. They pause, they turn, they wait, they stare, Showing the little one that they care. And once the lace is in its place, Up the little one goes to chase.
Into flight the little one soars, To catch up like times before. And every time the event struck, Their reactions quick, like a fire truck.
Soon to know the little one found “It’s always me that’s on the ground, No matter what, no matter when, my knots refuse to stay in zen.”
“But why, but why,” the little one cries, “I tie my shoes both day and night, I keep them clean and keep them tight, Yet despite my might, The shoes they never stay on right!”
But oh, but oh did the little one know, That when they grow, new colors would show. And every time the shoes were loose, Fewer heads would turn obtuse.
The chase grew long, and the soar lost its pride, Yet the little one still made a stride.
Once the lace is in its place, Up the little one goes to chase. But this time they didn’t stop to check, They never even turned their necks.
In desperation, the little one ran “As fast as I possibly can,” In the chase the little one fell, Flat to the ground, only to dwell.
Before looking at the situation, The little one says in irritation, “Oh why, oh why, I’ll never catch up, these stubborn shoes, they always disrupt!”
The friends they walk, they talk in glee, As the little one scrapes the knee. An attempt to rise with tear pools in the eyes, And as the tears start to flow the gaze meets down below, Below to where no birds fly, Below to where the shoes lie.
Low and behold the little one found, That the shoelaces were never unbound. Then to the little one something becomes clear, A change in life, so sad but dear.
The knots, they do not fray, And the friends, they don’t always stay. To catch up like no time has flown, Only to find that “I am alone.”
Growing/Dying Ian Trance
mixed media on paper
Embalming for the Natural History Museum
Carefully pinned with colorful patterned wings spread, they are neatly tucked into their bug-sized caskets. Open viewing never buried.
A perpetual funeral at the butterfly exhibit.
Wherever you go, I’ll Follow
Anna McNulty
Waiting At The Train Station
Erin BoydIt’s been two weeks without you, and now you’re an hour away. It’s funny how sixty minutes can feel years longer than a fortnight.
Complaints, July 2023
Buff LindauWho can complain in Burlington—lucky folks that we are— given the rest of the world as close as Montpelier and Barre flooded stores, oh my Bear Pond Books, everybody’s favorite—and they came to rescue it, in droves. But other places, so much mud and water, now toxic no rescue worked. Porches fell off. Roofs collapsed. Take heart from all the book lovers who flocked and piled and washed and cleaned stacks of books— a book lovers haven, Bear Pond, for decades, maybe now again
But what about the cows and chickens and corn fields
Plumb juicy cobs, with silk, ready for the picking! So good! Now gone. Vermont’s farms, ready plush greens, tomatoes nearly ripe, now ruined, and the frightened animals, grass chewing animals with none of that for them Not to mention the sweltering unspeakable shade-less scorching in America’s south midwest, west Europe too, hot Florence, hot Rome, hot Milan, always hot Naples and the unnamed in Africa—oh my—they always suffer the most
Oceans ninety-six degrees, who can stand it???
Not the orcas or whales or sea lions, or small fish they lunch on People aren’t all the planet boasts and hosts
The magnificent birds and leopards, the swimmers, leapers, flyers— it’s people who challenge and damage and bedevil it all
No complaints now from us who’re doing the damage Relentlessly—cry though we may—it’s happening Where’s the salvation, the action, the caring, the fix.
February
Meagan
Pruning a Lilac
Jason HarlowFrom the other side of our split-rail fence my neighbor offers gardening advice: keep a few dead branches on the lilac when pruning it –too much air between the leaves looks flimsy. Remove expired blooms as much as you want, but those wizened limbs provide good support and the texture among the foliage –a gnarled appendage twisting off the trunk, scattered twigs, a few strips of peeling bark –has aesthetic value. What's more, with all that extra crisscrossing kept inside your shrub, the birds will thank you for so many places to land.
Dye
Jim HefferonThey tell you that it's warm and encourage you to feel the bag. But when the contrast goes through the needle then your veins tell you that it is cold, icy cold, as it spiders across your chest.
Eyes closed. Count. One pump, two pump, three pump. You can breath now. We have the picture.
Home, finally.
I lift her up, helping her reach the glasses. I give her the support to get what she couldn't, making sure she is safe and capable. With my help
she can reach more and only asks for assistance every now and then.
I help her when I can, but I miss the days when she needed my extra length.
She is leaving today, she has grown and no longer needs my support. I move back into storage waiting for the day she needs me.
Today, she gave birth. I have been sitting at home rusting. I creak now as her kids ask for help; I try but with age I’m no longer sturdy.
Miriam Kirschner
Does wind in its movement from high to low pressure, in its desperate bid for a little more room to breathe mean to erode the mountain?
It carries seeds and disease in one gust
whistling its innocence, whirling about–like a drunk it can’t walk straight–rubbing its hands on skunk, oak, fence, and face–full force on my face.
The land is lying in wait for light and bald branches are primed to catch while the pitcher just stands there, smoking six cigarettes at once.
Don’t I alternate between rush and patience,
and knowing wind has a destination, how can it not be alive,
reaching Lake Champlain tasting of what it’s touched?
Madrid Morning Stroll
Kiernan Pinto
Super.
William CoburnIt must have been close to a decade ago, maybe around Autumn, because I recall leaves had clogged all the drains. I hastily pressed pause on the blaring podcast, some both-sides NPR bullshit about the Jews and Palestine. Pulling out an ear bud I peered out the dusty window of my third-floor apartment. Moments before, a crunching thud had interrupted the doodle I was absentmindedly scribbling out across the bottom corner of the desk. What pierced the solitude of my own thoughts seemed to be a man, splayed out across the windshield of a car parked along the street outside. Or, rather, inside the windshield of a car parked on the street outside.
Across his chest lay some kind of red blanket, which, I could only assume based on the cratered car, obscured quite a bit of blood. His leg lay twisted at an unhuman angle, like at any moment it could break off and walk away without him. A few pedestrians had stopped to stare for a moment at this sudden appearance of man and man-sized hole: a mother shielded her son’s eyes, a sweatered old man used his cane to hold himself steady, a chubby baker took a long bite of a scone as he swung his head out of his shop window.
My teapot whistled. I rushed to turn off the stove as steam poured out of the kettle. A nice cup of lemon tea was always comforting. I cuddled up underneath the scratchy not-quite-square blanket Nana had made me. I took a moment to examine the bruise-shaped ink stains blotted across my hands from the doodling, thinking how annoying it would be to scrub off later. How would someone even get on the roof of this building? With the too-many-bucks rent I was paying for an apartment in the city, you would think someone would at least show you how to get to the roof! Imagine sunsets up there…blues, oranges, and purples…red streaking across the sky.
I heard a loud knock. It was Janie, who lived a floor down from me. “OH MY GOD. Did you hear?? The guy across from you. Apartment 3B? Quiet with the scruffy beard? Just jumped off the roof. Killed himself! Can you
believe it?!” Janie’s bright turquoise sweater was plastered with a family of tiny smiling turtles, making it difficult to listen with a serious expression. Honestly, it was usually hard to take Janie seriously, as she tended to dress and act like she was half middle school girl, with her ponytail peeking out from the sides of her head as she bounced from foot to foot in my doorway. Janie was kind of over the top about everything, but she was at least easy to get along with. When Janie was around there was no need to make conversation; she chattered enough for two. “I’ve got to bring Tommy and Dylan to school!” She waived her hands wildly through the air. “How am I supposed to explain this to them?”
By the time she had finished detailing her astonishment, my tea was cold, and her boys were late for school. I didn’t really like lemon tea anyway but hadn’t gone to the store in weeks, and now with this whole ordeal outside my door, cold lemon tea was what I was stuck with.
Two droopy-eyed cops came to the door later that night. Judging by the coffee stains and crumbs their last investigative stop had been the bakery down the street. They peered half heartedly into my tiny apartment. The shorter one, young enough to be the other’s grandson, took out a small notebook but didn’t seem to have anything to write with. After patting each pocket, he gave up and put it away. “Your neighbor committed suicide. Did you know him well?” “No, not really.” “Any signs of depression?” “No.” The elder shot a waste-of-my-time look to his partner and turned to leave. I wanted to say that usually people don’t just go around telling their neighbor that they’re depressed. That some people like to be left alone. He had been odd though. Quiet guy. I always heard him shuffling in and out at all hours of the night. Maybe I should’ve told the cops that I remembered when I had seen him, the last time.
It could have been Sunday, but all the days really blurred together, like smoke dissipating into the sky. I was making my way back from a latenight trip to pick up toilet paper when I ran into him, almost literally. He was leaning out of the tiny stairwell window on our floor, blowing a puff into the cool night air. He nodded my way and pushed the blunt in my direction. Never one to refuse a free high, I took a hit, letting the warmth
flood my chest and head. He gave me a satisfied look. Neither of us were big on pleasantries, and, leaning against opposite walls, savored the last of the nub. I shivered at the brisk Autumn breeze seeping in the open window, but he stood eerily still in a ragged T-shirt.
I think someone said he was a writer. Or some other creative shit. He certainly looked the part, always staring off into space with those crazy-ass eyes. I could have asked, but I didn’t. He spoke instead. “I had a telescope when I was a kid,” he muttered, staring out at the sky. “You want to be an astronaut or something?” I chuckled politely. “No,” he said, still fixated on the dark, “I’ve just always wanted to see them up close.” We stood there together for a few more moments until it got too cold and I gave him an awkward wave goodnight.
This last conversation, if you could call it that, stuck with me for a few years. It was one of those snow globe moments you keep on the upper shelf and pull down to remember occasionally. Janie would bring up the guy every few months, even after the apartment was filled and the roof door barred off. It became one of those stories you tell: “ya know…one time a guy jumped off my building…” I’d be reminded usually at parties when people started leaving and it got quiet enough to hear my own thoughts again. In a strange way, remembering it was comforting, like when you’re driving and the fog clears a bit and you can see that the street does in fact continue and not just drop you into a bottomless ravine. That feeling when you know that you can keep on driving a little longer.
But with each retelling, Janie’s surprise at the story never waned, and mine never manifested. People die all the time, I told myself…this happens. People lose themselves all the time. He just lost hope. We all do. Or in some backwards way, maybe he had more hope than the rest of us. Maybe he thought if he hoped hard enough, he really could touch those damn stars. I bought a telescope the other day. And even though I’ve never cared much for that sort of thing, I like that it sits in the corner now, gathering dust by the window. Just in case I ever want to take a look for myself.
Apocalypse
Buff Lindau
None greater than now
I surmise
Apocalypse ancient biblical war-induced
What could be more apocalyptic than now
We’re talking a river wiping away thousands in Libya
Heat in southern US burning bare feet on sidewalks
Syria struck with an historic-sized earthquake
Floods taking away much of the capital of Vermont
Riptides pulling people down down down
On once lovely Florida coastlines
And a weather event named Lee
Aiming at northern Maine—which never saw that before
But we’re not talking apocalypse
Since those biblical ones were punishment
For biblical sins
And now
We’ve sinned against the planet, biblical or otherwise
And the apocalypse keeps coming, unspoken, unacknowledged
But what else can you call it
A new hammerhead blow every day.
Saturday 2-4 PM, Quinn Funeral Home
Jenna Wilbur
I’m missing your wake this weekend.
Upon hearing of your passing this morning I first had to check my calendar and RSVP that I could not go. It’s funny having to put a pin in grief.
From the Corner, an Unnamed Statue Gazes at the Crouching Venus in the Middle of Room 23 in the British Museum
Lauren Best
You made me out of love. Yet, I am chiseled out of marble bound to my pedestal.
I thought love was freeing.
I gaze to another made with the same love in which you made me.
Your fingerprints will never wash off.
I gaze to look at your other lover while the passersby look at me.
Looking and being looked at.
They are fleeting. My gaze will remain unchanged. You made me out of love.
Rowan Metivier
The Crows in Winter
Day after day in the early dark of winter late afternoon in grey, fog, snow or mist, never in sunshine, the crows flock— first a few, soaring in the same direction, some in random chaotic groups, directionless. They circle, regroup, find the direction, shout to each other squawks, heralds, invitations, then a bevy towering together en masse towards what’s called a murder of crows. Hundreds—each one on its own branch. The best is when they settle on the tall skeletal trees in our back yard and on the bare tree limbs in the park beyond in sync, forming a confab.
Soaring, next, gathering in great number with solemnity, importance, finding a spot on the dramatic tall bare branches. Then quiet, total quiet after the shouting, in strange communion total quiet for half an hour in a timeless realm. Then they’re off. All of them, gone. Powerful, amazing. I hear they’re smart the crows.
I love them. I ache for them.
I want them to have it good together
in this urban scene yet of tall trees for the gathering—getting what they need whatever that is, for a nightly drama in winter.
Whispers of Time: Ode to the Elder Hummingbird
Emma JulietIn the quiet garden of ageless grace, Where time unfolds at a leisurely pace. There flits a hummer, with a weathered wing, An old companion, still daring to sing.
Bearing tales of blossoms from days of yore, Whispering breezes that echo once more. Worn feathers, like pages of a cherished book, In every flutter, a story it undertook.
A sage in flight, with a knowing gaze, Remembering the sunsets of bygone days. Though the body shows the weight of years, The spirit hums in spite of silent fears.
With a throat of ruby, a dulcet hum, A melody seasoned, like the beating drum. In the wrinkles etched upon its face, The map of time, a journey to trace.
Oh, ancient hummer, in the twilight's gleam, Navigating skies, a timeless dream. Seeking nectar in the shadows cast, A dance of twilight, unsurpassed.
In the garden's haven, where memories soar, The old hummer hums, forevermore. A relic of beauty, resilient and true, A testament to life, in every hue.
To keep the Sabbath in the woods, I hike the trail from Bear Mountain Road that heads toward Clarendon Gorge. Following three miles of thicket, past Minerva Hinchey shelter, the forest canopy opens as if a cathedral ceiling.
Leaf-dappled sun lights the nave. Maple, oak, and ash vault the roof. And in branches forming the choir, a hermit thrush warbles a song. I don’t see the drab-feathered bird, but know it is there by its voice –which the trees respond to with echo.
I find a place to sit and rest, listen to this avian mass an expert soloist intones. Then, when ready, resume my trek along the edge of Spring Lake Ranch, arriving at the pebble-beached gorge to swim in vigorous water.
The other day, I stood before my car window, My elated son inside, navigating to a destination unknown.
My reflection stared back, Slightly distorted by marks left behind by his small hands. Veins so fragrant with youth that I could have read his entire palm.
Instead, my eyes snagged
On the creases traversing from my eyes.
Tiny fault lines, stretching east towards my cheeks And north to my brow.
Permanent witnesses of both my joy and despair, The paradoxes that are to live a life. Clarity, confusion, exuberance and exhaustion
Quietly etched deep into skin.
A steady beat drew me back, Palm on window, A call waiting for response.
A hallowed reminder of the grace and pure luck
That is to grow old enough to have a crow Create its resting place upon one’s brow.
Carmarthen Anna McNulty
Savage Canyon Alex Clark
as a boy every Saturday with dad up the hill in his rusted yellow pickup to the dump.
seagulls flocking and big yellow CATs. a little work to get the blood pumping. a pile of garbage going, going, gone. all gone. heading home blush-faced and dirty we stop for slushies at 7-Eleven every time, sometimes hotdogs.
years later as an adult I realize I’ve returned to the dump alone.
I’ve gotten slushies alone.
without conscious thought I have recreated the moment from the memory, done both
in the same day, but it wasn’t the same. He wasn’t there.
millimeter film photography
BEFORE WORDS
John IZZIBefore words for this and that, Before names set apart you from me, infinitesimal strings vibrate.
Attuned ears hear the hum. No need for drums to beat. Rhythms are timeless. Harmonies, endlessly new, pacify finite minds.
Before words for this and that, Before names set apart you from me, an ensemble of countless strings vibrates.
In
The Cart
Sometimes Prudence must make way for Joy.
After Tuesday Night Men’s Lacrosse League Dan Johnson
The shower warming, you strip off the sweaty clothes in front of the mirror, and your eyes catch the gut, the flab, the stuff that wasn’t always there but definitely is now. You pause on your right shoulder where a new mark is developing, a district of burst vessels sparking red beneath your skin. You remember the scrum you entered, the ball on the ground, and how that guy from SUNY Plattsburgh put a divot in your shoulder with the crown of his helmet as you both bent and fought for the small white ball that is the prize even now. You look at the new bruise, run your left hand over your right shoulder, feeling the pain sensation, the sense-history that confirms yes: you were there, in that fight, and trying still.
“Italian Jorts Grampa” Because You Said We Could Name It
January 8th
William CoburnI remember sitting on the floor, the rug accommodating my intensity Like a drop-cloth for my flowering head, bursting open with a thousand persons I could be. There is no one else here, and my head brims with stories to share.
My bed sinks softer; the ceiling too oppressively blank. There is no one else here, and my mind is cluttered with monstrous machinations.
SEMINAR NOTES
John IZZICut the root. Slice the be from being.
Let a sole syllable rise and sing. May our minds ponder no name.
Rapt, may we hear the refrain — ing.
All Along the Watchman
Erin Boyd
Awaiting Spring, 2022
Buff LindauA fox came through the bare back yard
Sniffed, looked, circled
Stepped up the slope, so elegant
Out of sight and away
The neighbor had a big tree removed
And a small one
Huge tractors loaded with serious equipment ground up logs
Woke the day, filled our narrow street with menacing sound
And mega vehicles.
She said its shallow roots
Crept right up to her house
Invaded the concrete foundation
Still, she must know . . . trees clean the air
Both of us near or actual octogenarians
Love our gardens, await spring, hope to have a few more . . .
Winter so long, spring so slow in Vermont
Thinking and planning the joy of firsts
First pokes of scilla, crocus, daffs, then
The full display day by day and week by week
Returning delights, glorious peonies early
Then all the rest, flowering bushes, trees,
Maple seed pods flying, and later, our vegetables
None of it yet—just crusty brown dried leaves and broken bits
But that fox, a beauty, long fluff tail
Quick, nose forward
Harbinger of coming excitement
He won’t return—only appeared for a flash
But promising, somehow
An exit of winter, now in the wavering retreat of March
We await warmth and rejuvenation of gardens—
And of ourselves
Embracing our good fortune, guilty, horrified
Waiting for Putin to stop bombing, destroying, killing
Sending Ukraine children and their families
Away from their gardens to hide in metro stations
Unspeakable
Bundled up children flee with a stuffed animal
Wool hats and winter parkas
People who had homes, indoor plants, jobs, pets, school
Music lessons, pianos
Refugees flee carrying small dogs, cats in cages
What will they do for food. Water. A shower.
The devastation is happening without cause, without end.
How can we wait for spring burgeoning fast and slow
When they struggle to drive on clogged highways or board full-up trains
To get out of town. Into a new town. Uncertain what they’ll find there.
And then what?
When will it end?
There is no point.
more flour remember: 10:30 doctor’s appt
granola bars
apples maybe
Written on the back of an old flyer
Evelyn Merciergroceries: flour remember: 10:30 doctor’s appt
groceries:
things that make me feel weird:
more flour remember: 10:30 doctor’s appt
seeing old classmates in the hallways living in a landlocked state waking up past dinnertime
bars maybe that make me feel weird: old classmates in the hallways in a landlocked state up past dinnertime
milk granola bars apples maybe things that make me feel weird: seeing old classmates in the hallways living in a landlocked state waking up past dinnertime
smell of my grandmother’s home in june slamming of screen doors ghosts that live in my closet having the heat on and windows open finding my dead cat’s fur on old clothes
smell of my grandmother’s home in june slamming of screen doors
applause telling strangers my secrets loving someone who is dead in a theoretical way del rey
the smell of my grandmother’s home in june the slamming of screen doors the ghosts that live in my closet having the heat on and windows open finding my dead cat’s fur on old clothes
ghosts that live in my closet the heat on and windows open my dead cat’s fur on old clothes
applause
the poems unwritten and the words unsaid the times i laughed and nobody listened the wants and the needs of everyone around me
applause telling strangers my secrets
strangers my secrets
childhood stuffed animals watching me get ready for a date christmas time starting in october dollar coffees
loving someone who is dead in a theoretical way lana del rey
someone who is dead in a theoretical way rey
my childhood stuffed animals watching me get ready for a date christmas time starting in october six dollar coffees
childhood stuffed animals watching me get ready for a date christmas time starting in october dollar coffees
the hum of the train tracks or the highway
hum of the train tracks highway
hum of the train tracks the highway whatever that haunting sound is abandoned coastal homes change in tone promise four letter word boy named thomas drove him home in my car one night think he was homeless list of names i keep for when i’m dead poems unwritten the words unsaid times i laughed nobody listened wants and the needs everyone around me
whatever that haunting sound is abandoned coastal homes change in tone promise letter word named thomas him home in my car one night he was homeless of names i keep for when i’m dead poems unwritten words unsaid times i laughed
whatever that haunting sound is abandoned coastal homes a change in tone a promise a four letter word a boy named thomas i drove him home in my car one night i think he was homeless
the list of names i keep for when i’m dead
nobody listened
Fall Cleaning
My garden is grotesque: engorged with slop and shrubs, showing my surrender to the seasons. Snip snap go my shears. Thud goes the mud being thrown behind my shoulder. While my shovel sends critters scurrying, I rue the realization that the art of gardening requires more than two hands.
Double Delight
Buff Lindau
and that’s not an ice cream flavor but the surprise that captures the bravissimo stealth moves of my two: both love things Italian but their worlds have moved on no longer the scuola materna of Bagni di Lucca sparked with merinda (snacks) and three-course lunches, or the school bus they took together in Lisbon at ages four and fourteen. Both grown, married, settled on opposite coasts.
We’re heading to DC for thanksgiving with first born, his wife and ten-year-old son! I said to him, ‘you don’t have to do a big feast— we can eat out or eat simple.’
‘I love doing all the preps,’ he said, ‘the bird, the stuffing, all the parts.’
So generous.
Already a double or maybe triple delight Son, his wife, his child, and then came mega news: second son and his wife are flying from Seattle to DC to join the party! We’re talking double delight. Those amazing sons, whose charms and talents and kindnesses never end.
Screwed the Pooch
Erin Madden
Message to a Friend One Week Later
Nick AlbinoIt's just that— I had to clean my ears today. and I’ve always hated it. But she loved it.
So I would clean her ears with q-tips near every night. and she would lie like a cat in my lap. A hushed, soft, delicate world. Clean ears.
Then she would offer to do mine back, out of kindness. Out of love.
And I would always say yes— even though it was something I hated with hard-sound scratching and pulling and pushing and taking from a spot as intimate as my inner ear. Somehow she made it feel like all the fireflies that I know are inside me would escape from within glowing green bug light. Just laying there.
But when I do it myself, It hurt. It just hurts— I try and try q-tip after q-tip cotton ripping earwax reddening. I can never get it right
I still have three boxes of q-tips— Three big boxes.
And I cant stop hurting myself over and over wishing it was her hand instead of my own.
This is the sort of poem she would hate.
From Time To Time
William CoburnPaint flakes off the crumbled stairway to a home long gone, a shell, even then, when You and I were sitting on these steps to nowhere
Now the curtains drawn, past the green-gold sunsets when we’d smell adventure in the air, run far-flung fields without a care, and risk it all at when someone made it a dare
What happened here happens everywhere, when boys (who will be boys) turn to men, and cast aside their voice to trade small talk like worthless currency
I remember when we could afford to sit in silence, defiant of the well-meant warnings of how precious each dew-stained morning truly was, and only went home when we heard the buzz of the old farm tractor
Take me back to those nights, sweet Lord give me the sight to see without my rose-drenched eyes, what I saw in times gone by, the song and dance under the passed-on sky
We start not where we finished but take each reminiscence with a grin is that too much to ask?
From a man who was a boy, if only in his past.
The Unbidden JoAnna B. Easton
Unfettered and lucky for years until the unchosen rose like the moon fierce and hungry in the black sky.
My father’s death, me in Chicago for work walking it off, in a long black coat all night, a blood soaked pad between my legs.
A cheating husband, a divorce like a photo torn in two the children go from side to side.
My daughter’s illness, told in tears through a locked, ornate iron gate I fumble for the keys. She is thirty; I am too old to bleed.
Another ending of another love wordless, impenetrable silence my mind, blank and white with rage and sorrow.
Each event singular yet bound, stretched over two decades yet all in a streak, like lightning a slur of fear and loss.
My other daughter now leaving for a shaky spot in West Africa my loss door swings open again those hinges never rust.
Now my heart beats
deep in my ribcage cage, cage, caged flapping and batting around.
It’s loud in there like thunder rattling and roaring against the mountains of other organs and bones.
I rise and walk to the sea, I have to, I pick up shards of sea glass, I have to, aqua-marine and jade triangles jingle life’s jagged music playing in my jacket pocket.
Father, daughters, lovers and me together. This is how we do.
Walls — ME, MYSELF, AND I
John IZZITell me who I am. I need to know. Me, myself, and I beg you. Let us know that you know who we are. Lock us in the cage whose bars we ourself have forged.
Watch us pace to and fro. Can you hear the echo of our pant trapped inside the circle’s path?
Tell me who I am.
I need to know and not forgo me, myself, and I.
My Father's Things, Contact Quad #4
Jordan Douglas
To This Day I Do Not Know What to Make of Such Stories
Sophia Meimaris[This writing is a work of pastiche based on pages 59-64 in W. G. Sebald’s novel, The Rings of Saturn. Pastiche: an artistic work in a style that imitates that of another work, artist, or period, or is made up of selections from different works.]
Perhaps it was that darkening that called to my mind an article I had clipped from the Eastern Daily Press several months before on the death of Major George Wyndham Le Strange, whose great stone manor house stood beyond the lake in Henstead. During the last War, the report read, Le Strange served in the anti-tank regiment that liberated the camp at Bergen Belsen on the 14th of April 1945. Le Strange, riding with a Lieutenant John Randall, was one of the first people to reach the camp, having discovered the scene by chance. Le Strange recounts the infamous day in a diary left behind at his great uncle’s estates in Suffolk, which he managed until his death, having returned from Germany and suffering from intense nightmares. The acres of ground were covered in dead and dying people, I could not ascertain which was which, he writes, emaciated corpses stood in awful, ghostly procession, unable to move or take in the terrible scene surrounding them, their eyes glazed over and staring at points unrecognizable in my own frantic gaze. Belsen had created the most horrible day of my life. At that time which he had taken over Suffolk, the newspaper writes, Le Strange took on the housekeeper to whom he eventually left his entire fortune, a simple young woman from Beccles by the name of Florence Barnes, on the explicit condition that she take the meals she prepared together with him, but in absolute silence. Mrs. Barnes told the newspaper herself that she abided by this arrangement, having found that her employer chose to remain
silent throughout the day, and in her opinion, silent meals were not much stranger. Though Mrs. Barnes gave only the most reticent of responses to the reporter’s enquiries, my own investigations revealed an increasingly odd way of life. In the late fifties, Le Strange discharged his household staff and his laborers, gardeners, and administrators, citing a desire to rid himself of excess, thenceforth he lived alone in the great stone house with Mrs. Barnes of Beccles. As a result, the whole estate, with its acres of gardens, became overgrown and neglected. Stories circulated in the villages that bordered his domain, drawing on the little that reached the outside world over the years, rumors that occupied the people who lived in the immediate vicinity. Thus in a Henstead hostelry, I heard it said that into his old age he had worn out his wardrobe, throwing old robes and pants and embroidered shirts over the balcony of his bedroom when he was through with them, so that the overgrown garden below his windows became animated with the previous lives of these garments. Seeing no point in buying new clothes, Le Strange would fetch clothing dating from bygone days from chests in the attic as he needed them. There were people and newspapers who claimed to have seen him on occasion dressed in a canary-yellow frock coat over a kind of mourning robe of faded violet taffeta with numerous buttons and eyes. Le Strange, who had kept a tame cockerel in his room since boyhood, was reputed to have been surrounded in later years by all manner of feathered creatures, which were never seen being delivered or brought into the house. The guinea fowl, pheasants, pigeons and quail, as well as various kinds of garden and songbirds, the robin, house sparrows, and blackbird, materialized within the walls of the manor and seemed never to step outside, despite most of the windows being kept open throughout the warmer seasons. Some said that one summer Le Strange dug a cave in his garden and sat in it day and night like St. Jerome in the desert, taking his silent meals within the shrubbery. Most curious of all was a legend that I presume to have originated with the Henstead undertaker’s staff, the only strangers to have stepped foot in the manor in over thirty years, which claimed that the Major’s pale skin was olive green when he passed away, his goose-gray eye was pitch-dark, and his snow-white beard had turned to raven dark. They attributed the perimortem changes to the concoction in the porcelain pitcher found on his nightstand which he supposedly drank every day, a mixture which
neither the undertaker nor his staff could surmise the contents of. To this day one does not know what to make of these stories. One thing is certain: the estate and all its adjunct properties was gifted to Florence Barnes upon Le Strange’s death, who lives now with her sister in a bungalow in Beccles, as she had intended.
Teagan Submitted This Photo of a Donkey Without a Title and Told Us We Could Choose the Title so We Have Chosen This Title: Nice Ass
Teagan McCaffery
“He repeated until his dying day that there was no one with more common sense, no stonecutter more obstinate, no manager more lucid or dangerous, than a poet.”
~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera
Core Editing Staff
Rosemary Marr ’24 talks to trees, and deer, and wild things. For four years she has grown Onions, being the Harvester-in-Chief the last three. This year, her poem was written about hamsters dying; she’d like to apologize to every hamster ever and hopes they have found peace in hamster heaven or perhaps hamster hell. Rosemary would like to thank both the Philosophy and English Departments, especially her advisors Professor L’Hote and Professor Shea, for their patience and guidance as she grows to be the best herb she can be.
Christopher “Cito” DeNegre ’24 is sad to say his first year as (co-)Editorin-Chief of the Onion will also be his last; however, he’s happy to say he’s accepted the fact that his last name is spelled inconsistently on various legal documents. If you’d like to stay in touch, burn a Loeb, or misuse “less” and “fewer”: he’ll come running. Cito would like to thank God, his family, and his friends for all their love and support; he’d also like to dedicate this Onion to Anthony Lee Bomgardner, Jr.
Miss you, buddy— this one’s for you.
Erin Madden ’24 is not sure who she is.
Sophia Meimaris ’24 would like to thank the English department for instilling a passionate love of English in her life. Now what she'll do with that is anyone's guess...
Anyssa Logan ’24 is a Digital Media and Communication major, with double minors in Philosophy and Global Studies. She is an avid onion fan and would be in heaven if she could enjoy a sauteed onion with every meal. Outside of enjoying onions, she is an avid reader and can be found with her Kindle beside her at all times. Actually, her heaven would be a dinner of sauteed onions and a good book beside her.
Erin Boyd ’26 is just happy to be here.
Megan Koren ’26 thought she was being inducted into an onion-centered cult, and was half-correct and half-disappointed. She is excited to inherit stewardship of the Onion along with Erin Boyd
A Thank You to Our Auxiliary Editors:
Kathleen Dean ’26
Victoria Reed ’26
Annabelle Farrell ’25
Quinn Balsam ’25 and Jenna Wilbur ’26
Top row: Megan Koren, Erin Madden, Anyssa Logan, Erin Boyd, Sophia Meimaris
Bottom row: Rosemary Marr, Cito DeNegre