Spires Spring 2021 by spiresmagazinewustl

SPIRES SPRING 2021

SPIRES intercollegiate arts & literary magazine

SPRING 2021

Copyright 2021, Spires Magazine Volume XXVI Issue II All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from Spires and the author or artist. Critics, however, are welcome to quote brief passages by way of criticism and review. This publication was designed by Jade Wang and set into type digitally at Washington University in St. Louis. Typefaces used are Kings Caslon, designed by Dalton Maag Design Studio, and Montserrat, designed by Julieta Ulanovsky. Caslon was originally designed by William Caslon. Spires accepts submissions from undergraduate students around the world. Works were evaluated individually and anonymously. Spires is published biannually and distributed free of charge to the Washington Univeristy community at the end of each semester. All undergraduate art, poetry, prose, drama, song lyric, and digital media submissions (including video and sound art) are welcome for evaluation. spiresmagazine@gmail.com spires.wustl.edu facebook.com/spiresintercollegiatemagazine instagram.com/spiresmagazine_wustl twitter.com/spires_magazine

Table of Contents LITERATURE 01

Melia Van Hecke fledgling

Bella Moses Dream of Dodo Bird

Joe Mantych “The Steil Brothers”

Sophia Li Tarot reading on soft balmy night half an hour before 18th birthday*

Sara Rizzoli Valentines

Sierra Revels untitled

Mar Hanif Mothergarden

Nicole Adabunu ode

Morgan Rogers Deep Within and Far Outside

Hannah Grimes A Cordial Boy

Caroline Fuller Girl Talk

Johnathan Smith Neighborhood Watch

Lydia Nickels Things I Saw

ART 02

Morgan Rogers All at Once

Stacey Cheng To Memory

Jackson Hescock The Quietness of Fresh Snow Madi Fang Plant Man

Sophie Ross Wishful Thinking

Sophie Ross You Can’t See Me

COVER ART FRONT Taylor Woods COVER Her Hair-Raising Stare University of Southern California, ‘22 Marker FRONT Taylor Woods INSIDE Decomposing Composition COVER University of Southern California, ‘22 Acrylic

BACK Jackson Hescock INSIDE A Condensed Universe COVER Washington University in St. Louis, ‘23 Oil on canvas BACK Simon Kim COVER Gage University of Southern California, ‘22 Oil on canvas

Staff EDITORS-IN-CHIEF

SENIOR EDITOR LITERARY EDITOR ART EDITOR PUBLICITY DIRECTOR LAYOUT EDITOR STAFF

Brianna Hines Lexie von Zedlitz Isabelle Celentano Hanah Shields Amy Hattori Anna Bankston Jade Wang Prerana Acharyya Alexis Bentz Kimberly Buehler Mahtab Chaudhry Jeffrey Chi Lauren Ellis Meredith Levin Jason Liu Gabriella Hetu Gaby Mendoza Olivia Salvage Campbell Sharpe

Letter from the Editors Dear Reader, One year into the COVID-19 pandemic, Spires staff sat down to compose our third digital issue of the magazine. Having grown familiar with Zoom classrooms and virtual gatherings, our staff approached discussions of our literature and art submissions with new confidence. Weekly meetings provided a refuge of friendly faces from the stresses of another online semester. For a second time, Executive Staff worked diligently to solicit submissions entirely online. We were delighted to receive one hundred twenty submissions from artists and writers across the country. Talented individuals shared their creative work with us, and we feel honored to review such vulnerable and poignant works. After a year of isolation, we received experimental works from writers and artists who push creative boundaries. Ultimately, the twenty-four pieces published in this issue span a multitude of styles and tones, offering thought-provoking and unique approaches to art and literature. Many depict tangential realities, an escapist perspective of the mundane realities of our quotidian lives. Following two years of passionate and dedicated leadership as Editor-in-Chief, Isabelle Celentano stepped away this January to pursue the next chapter in her creative career. We are grateful for the Spires staff warmly welcoming us as the new Editors-in-Chief, and we strive to follow Belle’s example of leadership and creativity. Her colorful perspective and vibrant, out-of-the-box ideas will be missed, and we wish her well as she celebrates her graduation this spring. At the close of an unusual academic year, we are pleased to present an issue filled with inventive, eccentric, and sometimes weird works of art and literature. We hope this issue of Spires provides you with a vibrant escape as we turn the corner towards a post-pandemic world soon. Sincerely,

Lexie von Zedlitz Brianna Hines & Lexie von Zedlitz Editors-in-Chief

fledgling MELIA VAN HECKE, WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS, ‘23 i don’t know how my sister saw the open-mouthed mute, wailing behind the stalks of uncut sweet-wheat grass skinned and crying embryonic fluid, it breathes. it sits with its tongue flickering neck arched back wavering throat chords warble a blue jay’s song. above where the rhododendron grows a shambled nest crafted and decaying a motley of hair ribbons and pocket trash. i snap on surgical gloves dark blue like summer dusk so that maybe its mama will want it my ladder crushes wild strawberries and flowering garlic i stand unfit on an uneven shelf, breaking the stems beneath me baby cartilage writhes like a snake-swallowed pet its toothpick thin talons slip and prick and kick my palms i shudder the wingless weeper among its brothers and sisters. my hands are empty and i breathe. and no one wanted to tell me about the two closed-eye babies that waited again in the uncut grass bathing in the pale gaze of the sunrise and no one invited me to the funeral of the morning after, rejects out from under mama’s wing stillborn landlocked cracked beaks that screamed as they fell my oil is on their skin, and no one blames me for the too young eyelash thin flesh fetuses with only membrane protecting their no longer beating hearts. i get a shovel to scoop out twin graves i don’t look at the nest where the rhododendron grows and no one blames me. 1

All at Once

MORGAN ROGERS WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS, ‘24 OIL ON CANVAS

Dream of Dodo Bird BELLA MOSES, HAMILTON COLLEGE, ‘23

These are not the coastal woods of Mauritius no, this dodo bird stood on pavement, stood as if struck dumb in the handicap parking space between Office Max and Total Wine and Spirits. What a beautiful dodo bird I say Don’t be silly says my mother. The dodo bird catches her reflection in a puddle of engine oil. Bulbous grey beak, swirled nostril like a galaxy the color of bone. A beautiful dodo bird. My mother walks into Total Wine and Spirits. I call after her: I thought you stopped drinking! Don’t be silly says my mother this is a dream. Alone with the dodo bird, I am suddenly afraid to get too close. Her yellow feet seem dangerous, 3

big, and old. I feel guilty suddenly, for bringing her here. Like a celebrity in one of those YouTube videos where they show you around their million-dollar homes and try to pretend to be normal people. Here dodo bird, here is everything you cannot have. Look at these beautiful square buildings, so earth-toned, so resistant to catastrophe, look at this is the world we made without you. The dodo bird turns her big head away. She might be crying or indifferent or maybe angry with me. You can never tell with dodo birds. I imagine the tear drops leaking out from her cadaverous yellow eyes. They’d be purple, I think and glow like small oceans thick with bioluminescent plankton. My mother emerges with three bottles of cheap merlot and a little green box of Nicorette gum. She stands

universes away at the other end of the parking lot, the pavement dipping towards her like a marble placed in the middle of a sheet, weighing the fabric down, drawing it towards her, the whole strip mall falling into her lap. The pavement and the Office Max, and me, and the puddle and the dodo bird falling, thick legs flying, its wings heavy and useless silly beautiful dodo bird I mean to say I’m sorry those Dutch sailors ate you into extinction but you can’t just come into somebody’s parking lot like that, I was trying to talk to my mother and now all I can see is them coming at you with spears and you opening your feathered chest towards them with love, clumsy and oblivious until the blade plunged in with a dull squelch.

The Quietness of Fresh Snow JACKSON HESCOCK WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS, ‘23 OIL ON PANEL 7

“The Steil Brothers” JOE MANTYCH, WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS, ‘23

“I reckon it rains tomorrow.” “Yeah, and what makes you think that?” “I don’t know. I just reckon.” “You’re always reckoning.” It was cicada season in Herculaneum, Missouri, and the woods were buzzing as the sun reddened and sank behind the tree line. The two Steil brothers sat in folding chairs on their front porch, both nursing fogged-up glasses of sweet tea and rum. A portable radio sat between them on the floor, and an AM radio station was playing, rerunning an episode of Jeopardy! from 2010. The Ottoman Turks’ failed siege of this European capital in 1529 marked the limit of the Islamic advance westward. Alex Trebek’s voice sounded muffled through the tiny speakers. “What is Salzburg, Austria?” Denny Steil said as the air conditioning unit rattled in the window behind their heads. Over the horizon, white ripples of heat lightning rumbled in and out of existence, interrupting the dark sky with quick tendrils of light. What is Vienna, Austria? someone on the show answered. Vienna, Austria is correct. Pam, the board is all yours. “Fuck,” Denny Steil said. 8

When the episode ended, Christopher Steil stood up, stretched, rocked back and forth on his heels, and walked inside, his footsteps creaking on the wooden planks of the porch. The two Steil brothers had built the house themselves in 1993, a month after the Great Flood had wiped away their childhood home. Their father, Denny Steil Sr., had owned a tackle and bait shop in Taperville, and their mother, Brenda Steil, worked at the state penitentiary as a secretary to the warden until she stuck her head in an oven. When Denny Steil Sr. died four years later during triple bypass surgery, the two Steil brothers sold the tackle and bait shop and used what money they had to buy a couple of acres nearby, where they built their one-story house out of Douglas fir and white pine. Denny Steil picked up the radio and clicked it off, following his brother inside. **** It was raining the next morning as Denny and Christopher Steil drove together to the factory. The wipers on their silver Pontiac Sunfire that they had bought for three thousand dollars cash from a couple towns over did not work anymore, and Christopher Steil drove slow down the far-right lane on the interstate. “I was right.” “Right about what?” “The rain.” Christopher Steil did not respond, flicking on the turn signal and leaning forward in his seat. The road opened up into a valley before them, where the smokestacks of groaning factories stuck out into the swirling clouds like pillars. The Genesis Mannequins Manufacturing Plant was built on floodplains next to a bend in the Missouri River, and every year it sank two inches deeper into the soggy Earth. At this factory, Denny Steil worked in the Hands department, and Christopher specialized in Shoulders. The Steil brothers took lunch together, walking back out to their Pontiac in the gravel parking lot, where they spread chicken salad over slices of Bunny Bread as the rain continued to slam against the windshield. “Did you know that Kansas City has more fountains than any city in the world except for Rome?” Denny Steil asked as he leaned back in his seat. “What?” “Did you know that Kansas City has more fountains than any city in the world except for Rome?”

“Please, Denny, no more facts for the rest of lunch. Please.” Denny Steil’s hands were sore as he drove the Pontiac home after work, and he pinched the steering wheel between his thumbs and index fingers as he flew down the highway. The rain had stopped, but the clouds still lingered over the valley, gray as ash, churning on the inside. Empty boxcars sat on railroad lines slithering across the flat expanse. By the time the Steil brothers were out on their porch that night, the cicadas were back again. The radio crackled with an ad for luxury cars, and Christopher Steil went inside to get more sweet tea and rum, returning with his glass filled almost completely to the top, so much so that he had to tip-toe back to his folding chair to make sure none of it spilled. “Chris, did you know— “Denny. Not now.” “Sorry?” “Not now. I’m not in the mood right now. I do not care what you have to say right now.” Flashes of heat lightning lit up the sky in bursts. Christopher decided now was as good a time as any. “Denny, after this, I am going to go back inside, pack up all of my belongings, and leave in the morning.” The vibrations of the cicadas ebbed and flowed in the trees. “I am not happy with the current state of my life, and I am going to move out tomorrow.” Two red-crested hawks barreled out of the woods and up into the stars. “We’ve lived together for twenty-five years, Christopher.” “I know we have.” “Where are you going to go?” “I am going to take the bus to the Creekside Motel and stay there until I figure something else out.” “You can’t just leave me.” “Yes, I can. I’ve been intending to do this for a while.” “You’re my older brother. You can’t just leave me.” “You have a house, a car, a job. You have everything you need.” “This president was born in Point Pleasant, Ohio,” Alex Trebek said.

“Fuck you, Christopher. You think I’m happy? You think I’m having the time of my fucking life here? I have nothing. I am nothing. You’re it for me.” “This is what is best for the both of us.” Denny Steil threw his glass off the front porch, where it bounced onto the grass, and walked inside. **** For the next two weeks, Christopher Steil continued working at the Genesis Mannequins factory, bending plastic onto metal molds, and whenever the two Steil brothers caught sight of one another, they looked away as if they did not know each other. Then, after having moved out of the house he had built with his brother for fifteen days already, Christopher Steil stopped showing up at the factory. He was gone. For a while, Denny Steil continued to sit on his front porch alone, sipping on his glass and listening to Alex Trebek’s voice compete with the cicadas. One night, however, at least two months after his brother had left, Denny Steil decided to head into town. The Herculaneum Bar and Bowl shared a parking lot with the Shining Light Pentecostal Church, and there were only a handful of other cars there when Denny Steil’s Pontiac pulled in. When the Steil brothers first moved into town, they frequented the Bar and Bowl quite often, but that was years ago, and Denny Steil really hadn’t been back since then. “Sweet Mary, it’s one of the Steil brothers,” somebody at the bar said when Denny Steil walked in. He took a seat on the far-right side, closest to the lanes, where a trio of army vets in dress uniform were shining their bowling balls and comparing gleams. “Jack and Coke,” he told the bartender, a pale woman named Greta known throughout Herculaneum as having been struck by lightning minutes after cheating on her husband, which many say must have been divine punishment. The bolt traveled straight through her entire body, exiting the heels of her feet and scattering into the ground below, tracing a pink, spindly scar along the way. “Coming right up, darlin’.” Someone hurled a bowling ball down the lane, sending the pins flying.

A television screen was mounted above the bar, and by the time the Cardinals game reached the seventh inning, Denny Steil had drunk seven Jack and Cokes, now working on his eighth. When the game ended, he walked mechanically to his car out in the parking lot and opened one of the backdoors, sliding himself inside onto the suede upholstery. A fluorescent lightbulb on top of a wooden lamppost flickered nearby, swarmed by gnats and mosquitoes. That night, in the backseat of his car, Denny Steil dreamt of all the mannequins at the factory coming to life and marching to his house. He woke up the next morning to the sound of Greta rapping her knuckles against the car window. “Denny? Denny Steil?” He sat up and unlocked the door, pulling himself outside. “Hi.” “Are you okay? Is everything… okay?” He couldn’t meet her eyes, staring instead at the bushels of crabgrass shooting out of cracks in the asphalt. “Yes’m. Yes.” “Nobody’s really seen y’all in town recently, you or your brother.” “Well, he’s, uh, he’s gone now, and I’ve been busy. With other people. A lot of other people, actually.” “Wait, Christopher’s gone? Gone where?” “I don’t know. But he left.” Denny Steil rifled through the pockets of his khaki shorts and found his keys, scooting around Greta to open the door and slide into the driver’s seat. He rolled the window down and looked up at Greta, squinting in the light. “I’m okay. I appreciate your concern. Have a good day.” Greta leaned against the lamppost, watching the Pontiac lurch forward and scurry out of the parking lot. **** Six months after he left, Christopher Steil returned to his home in Herculaneum. Doing the math in his head, he gave his cab driver three twenty-dollar bills and one five-dollar bill folded in half before getting out. It was eight in the morning, and the sun peeked its head through the tree limbs, splashing faint sunlight onto the porch of the house. Two squirrels chased each other around the tires of the Pontiac nearby.

The glass Denny Steil had thrown the night his brother told him he was leaving was still in the grass, cracked and chipped and covered in a layer of dirt. Christopher Steil found the house key hidden in the pot of dried-out Lenten roses on the porch, dragging his boots across the wiry doormat a few times before opening the door. “Denny?” It looked as if multiple people were inside. “Hello?” There were figures lurking everywhere in the house he had built with his brother—some of the mannequins were standing straight up with perfect posture, and others were contorted into certain shapes and movements with objects taped to their hand. There were figures pointing a remote at the television, looking out the window with a pair of binoculars, ironing a plaid shirt, reading the newspaper; there was even a mannequin tucked into bed in Christopher Steil’s room. Every figure was faceless, too, smoothed out into plastic, expressionless, motionless in the shadows of the house. “Christopher?” Sidestepping around the crowd of plastic bodies, Denny Steil walked up and stood in front of his brother. Christopher Steil could see that he hadn’t shaved in a while, and he had the same look on his face whenever he didn’t get enough sleep, his eyes sunken deep in their sockets. The moon shone through the windows like a floodlight. “Denny. What is all this?” “Christopher. You’re back.” The two brothers stared at each other. “What are these mannequins doing here? Did you take these from the factory?” “You’re back. What are you doing back?” The figures stood rigid like statues made of marble. There were at least two dozen of them scattered throughout the house, talking on a cellphone, brushing nonexistent teeth with a toothbrush, sitting in a chair with a cup of coffee, now cold. There was even a mannequin kneeling in the kitchen with its head stuck deep in the oven. “You’re back.”

Plant Man 14

MADI FANG WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS, ‘24 ACRYLIC PAINT, COLORED PENCIL

A Cordial Boy HANNAH GRIMES, WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS, ‘23

I He rides his bike to the grocery store and the lane runs out. Something sticky keeps coming up with the front wheel. Feels soft as bubblegum on southern Fridays. And his face feels freer than before. The wind makes a home in it, trapped like mint on pale cheeks. Now his wheels are wrought with it—this immovable tan figure. And the air smells like his mom’s lavender pastries after church in drought-filled front yards. And the lane is back but he’s in the desert. This must be the Sahara, he thinks. The cars are gone. The grocery store must be two thousand miles away. In the desert there is a mirror—middle of the road—and he sees his face. Fleshless. Skin on his wheels—his head a greenish purple. Lavender sprigs: feathers. Muscles: tar. Your mother is waiting back at the house, the mirror says to him. II He walks that street every night. Gray sweatshirt peeking out from jacket. His mother watches. Or his friend’s mother—he isn’t sure. Watch faces whisper to him. Auburn hair, too dark to appreciate here. Glasses on, only at night. Prepared to light at anything amusing. He’s listening to something. How the traffic flows. Where the sidewalk stops. The lay of the city. Is that a new Greek restaurant? Amusing is a specific term. He will tell you what it is, exactly. His walk will be over soon, or maybe in a long time. The extent of his memory is what he learned in school. But 15

he is a jazz musician. Do you like being a businessman? They all ask him. When he is with friends his eyes glaze with red marker: Where is he? Mornings bring molding fear. He chokes on fresh berries. He will forget about his mother. She will be in the laundry room waiting to greet him, pancakes already on the counter. She will ask about his job. She will love him in the language he speaks. She will stay until she is left a still life. III He has this vision from his apartment on 21st Street: Train tracks converge into dead limbs, climbing. Sky a gray inferno and egotist’s murmurs burnt. Almost dark as the trees claw nasty hands toward him. Dismal thirst on the path of a river. Warning signs everywhere. God forgot this part, where children go when they can’t find death. Frogs sing in trailers, failing as hail walks by. Old rusted bridges and life chopped down. He meets cars with tourist owners, fingers tapping in time to locust songs. Plague meter churns. Past, relieve him, he has reached the end of the world. Mixed crossroads—one lane street with hundreds of bodies. His mother’s call pulls him away.

Neighborhood Watch JOHNATHAN SMITH, WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS, ‘24

There’s always a little rust in the bottom of the wagon, which bothers you because the rust of the wagon gets on the boxes and the boxes touch your blue uniform with the tiger badge on it and then your shirt gets stained and Mom gets mad. Easy to pull, though. The wagon runs smooth. Don’t worry about the wheels. Easy to pull, even though you’d be strong enough to pull it if it was a cinder block. Big for your age, that’s what the neighbors say, the boy is big for his age. The sidewalks are cracked, but good wheels don’t worry about cracks. Your knees bounce your clipboard up and down as you walk, irritating, not enough to put it in the wagon. You trot like a duck-billed dinosaur down Sixth Street, pulling your rust-wagon, knocking on doors, I’m a Cub Scout from Pack 208, would you like to buy popcorn? You repeat and repeat, door after door, repeat and repeat. You repeat to the white house at the end corner, and people are yelling so you don’t knock on the door. You pull the wagon, but you’re curiously selfish so you walk slow and listen. Listen to the man who’s outside now, mad about his girlfriend or his car or both or neither. He yells and yells and his girlfriend gets in the car and he wants to be in the car but she doesn’t want him to be in the car. The damn needles, Justin, I’m done with this bullshit, the damn needles, I’m leaving. But the man, Justin now, doesn’t like that at all and then his balled-up fist is through the passenger-side window and glass mixes with dead orange leaves to shine like a broken jack o’lantern. You stop pulling the wagon, can’t pull the wagon, you’re watching a movie but you’re inside the screen and your feet are too heavy. Blood stains the pavement now, and Justin is still mad, and his girlfriend doesn’t want to leave anymore, she wants to help Justin stop bleeding. They hurry back towards the house, and you can’t move even though the wagon is easy to pull, you’re big for your age, that’s what the neighbors say, the kid is big for his age. Justin sees you. Justin starts yelling again, what the fuck are you looking at, starts screaming and your feet aren’t heavy anymore. You sprint, pull the wagon which isn’t a problem but right now it feels like a cinder block. One foot in front of the other, repeat and repeat, faster, repeat and repeat.

Far enough away now. You stop sprinting and sit in the rust of the wagon and cry. The neighbors’ eyes burn through their windows, but they don’t dare come outside and help the Cub Scout. They’ve already got their popcorn. No more crying now, pull the wagon back up the hill, back home. It’s twenty minutes before you even realize you can’t find your tiger badge. Too late for it now. Not a Cub Scout anymore. Too old for Cub Scouts, would have to be a Boy Scout and the first rule of high school is never trust a Boy Scout. They don’t sell popcorn anyway. The night air is warm and apple cider crisp, perfect night air for fire. Cicadas’ buzzsaw drones in the pine trees. You go and grab a light lemonade from Grandma’s fridge in the garage, always light lemonade, not regular lemonade, everyone is watching their sugar and you’ve always been big for your age, that’s what the neighbors said, the boy is big for his age. Serenity lives in molten embers for a while, crackles to let you know that life is alright right now. Fire exists and it’s not all bad. You can too. You can exist in the serenity, sirens start to go off. You can exist, the sirens are getting closer and you see the red-blue kaleidoscoping off the bush branches, same bushes you would crawl around in as a kid, find beer bottles from the night before, ask Mom why’d they end up there, I don’t know, Son. The ambulance is past your house. Not by very far. You’re already outside, might as well go see what the hubbub is about, walk down the driveway, down the hill. The man is lying in the middle of the asphalt. No, not lying, writhing. Back and forth, repeat and repeat. Bottles and syringes are strewn about him, a biblical arrangement of paraphernalia, in the middle, the disciple himself. Neighbor eyes are out again, peeking from the drapes, out the crack of the doorway. You’re there with the angel, watching as the paramedics lift him onto the burnt-orange gurney, feeling the ground swell beneath your feet, how the hell did you get here, step back sir, go home. The man is tucking away a smile, tears streaked down his pockmarked skin. maybe he was running scared, maybe he lost his wagon, he’s got rust all over him and mom is gonna be mad, somebody come outside and help the kid, he’s scared! someone. please. he can’t find his tiger badge.

To Memory

STACEY CHENG RHODE ISLAND SCHOOL OF DESIGN ‘21 OIL ON CANVAS 19

Tarot reading on soft balmy night half an hour before 18th birthday* SOPHIA LI, YALE UNIVERSITY, ‘24

i. the opening i caught a leaf this morning. thin, tendril curled, and on edge, its center marred with dry scars after a turning gone wrong— fate’s choice. on a faded cream sheet, a woman pours two cups of water. wondering if i have seen myself in its mirrored center. a mirrorball spins, flecks of light spill over the cups that hold my eyes. bring up that reflection behind plane windows on flight layovers, hours from destination. i look at the card. the space where her eyes should be seems to beckon.

*T 20

ii. the journey underneath rolling covers specks of gold shine, spilling from lampshades. sticky mouths and hands stuck with soft pink sweet. a sacred blood— ruptured. i wink out while the sky stays silent, unperturbed by the loss of one of its many. but only now do i complete eighteen birth cycles. and even now i do not understand an idea of safe, the idea of saving. it keeps returning: five of pentacles, pent up oracles, open orifice, repent over again.

iii. the time-post i forgot the question we were supposed to answer. a tower card falls into place. construct that illusion, will you, girl-soon-turned-woman? the fortune-teller does more than tell fortunes. and her eyes watch as i connect half-swallowed truths, beginnings and endings into pentacle piles, my turning gone wrong. i watch the golden cards in half-reflective light, each speck waiting for a chance to wink out. a chance to guide, every day, another destination. but maybe at twelve, i may learn to begin again.

Tarot reading: a question is asked / and the cards answer / three pieces / of present / past / and future 21

Wishful Thinking SOPHIE ROSS WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS, ‘23 WATERCOLOR

Mothergarden MAR HANIF, WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS, ‘22

he peris told me—taking no care to be gentle: Bring your sacrifice (you are allowed one), make your request in a low voice, do not amble, there is no negotiation. In their statue garden, where the stone idols speak through peris, the air wanders off and doesn’t say when she’ll be back. She will tarry among sites of marble and granite, tendril-strangled, and unused. She lingers amidst a menagerie of statues—all hybrid creatures—a Mantis Shrew with buck teeth and pincers, a dragon with the face of an eel, ten stone chickens with a variety of legs, and a Man Bear bellowing from the center. The statue which had most given itself over to the foliage was a boy only visible from the waist up, as if being birthed from the ground below. He is calm in the face of the vines choking him. Elsewhere, two marble men held each other by the waist, one sobbing and one laughing. Emperors long forgotten, winged babies, a Sun God, a regiment of solemn soldiers—and I came to join them. *** We were mothers and so filled hours with each other, swapping stories in the idle hours of sunlight, while children prattled in the corner. Discussed was any life that was not a mother’s. “The garden is supposed to be past the old water tower.” As she spoke, Maria— Roddy’s mom—used her spider-leg-fingers to snap open pistachios lightning quick, filling a bowl of shells in a blink. “But if the buildings become unmarked you’ve 24

gone too far. You won’t find anyone in that district to give you directions. Indra went there and came back to find her ex-husband (you remember, she would have purple spots on her arm) had passed in his sleep. Last year, Curran from the university, the one who took care of all those puppies, the last thing he’d done before fucking off—sorry Michelle—before heading off to fuck-knows-where and explore the world was visit the garden. Before that, he was pinching cigs from the K-Mart, he was so destitute.” A programmer’s wife: “Jinn, then. Wish-granters.” Nearby, my boy tapped my foot and I dropped a pistachio into his outstretched hand. Ungrown feet scuttled across to the other side of the room. The story-telling mother shook her head: “They’re not a charity.” Instead, trades were arranged. Indra gave up her mother’s shawl. Curran’s dog was found in the garden a day after the owner disappeared, flies buzzing around the dried gap in its neck. “Mama. Mama.” Across the room, my boy’s face was red with hurried blood. His fingers slipped around the tiny crack of the pistachio, failing to find an entry point. His sister was faster than me to him: A chubby mass in a Youth XXL hoodie whipped to his side and I lost his eyes. *** “Our masters say you’re free to return,” the peri blocking my path said, “when you’ve thought of an offering.” The peris had fluttered around my person and found nothing. Confused, they asked if I had hid my offering, if this was some sort of joke. They placed their bodies—none wider at the breast than the end of a spatula—in my line of sight, as if to block my irreverent gaze from their masters, the statues. I don’t see peris—not in town, in the neighborhood, not straggling around gas stations—they’re bound to the statues—serving their will. What would happen if I took them from their post? I could snatch one in the palm of my hand and mad dash, disappearing into an alley. Don’t prisoners released after too long behind bars find themselves itching for the inside of a cell? Their brain-shape is stuck that way. “I’m not greedy. I only want to give.” Maybe that was when they caught on that my stare was a leer, hungry for their everything in marble and granite: etched joints,

etched creases, etched bellies. I asked them, tender and tired, if I could be turned into a statue. *** His sister left me in increments, inching away with steps too small for the naked eye, until they rolled together into an irretrievable gap. She couldn’t make brunch, she was volunteering for Thanksgiving, she had missed the email asking if she’d come to Curran’s funeral. I woke up one morning and no trace of her remained with me. She had been the one to watch warily from a distance. He grew sickly and precious for weeks at a time, needing my constant attention and care. But of course they needed me both. I was their oldest friend, a surveying soul—knew them before they knew themselves. Only I could keep them from wandering, starve them of indulgences, confine them to the straight and narrow. And the bruises and cracked glass and sleepless nights and heavy eyes would, I hoped, be seen by them as a fine cost for securing their future. It was a Sunday when he knocked on my door. She was there, standing sentry by his side—the first time she’d come to my door in years. The edges around his mouth were red and peeling from his eczema and flakes of skin fell off as he said he’d come to get his things. I looked only at the boy. “What do you see?” He was grown now, wasn’t he? Tying his own shoes, cooking his own meals. What could he see? “Am I a villain? Do I look like a villain? I would die for you, you know that? I would saw through every bone and cut off my legs for you.” *** In confusion, it turns out, the peris’ wings angle awkwardly, the left higher and the right fluttering faster. “We could kill you. Cure your son. Get rid of your daughter.” They didn’t object to my request, only proposed alternatives. I shook my head. I was nearing my last leg—I could feel it in my knees. I needed my children to feel me, always—to know something of me lingered in this world permanently. “My children run around with parts of me,” I lament. “First it was things I gave—my name, my nose. Then they began to burp like me. Sing like me, flinch

like me. The cadence in their questions is mine but they think they can run past me. They need to remember me, I need to be preserved.” “But it has to cost you something.” “I am giving you everything.” The operation happened before I had a moment to understand it was happening. I was paralyzed, but it felt nothing like that. I was wrapped in half-sleep with no desire to wake from the stone slumber. I realize later what I have given the garden. They come to plant their sorrows and flowers, but I find neither peace nor anger in their eyes. I do not recognize anything except the garden. I cannot locate the frail boy before me or his bitter companion in my memories. All I know is I am in pursuit—me and my granite bones in an endless chase, and with no sense why.

Girl Talk

CAROLINE FULLER, OCCIDENTAL COLLEGE, ‘21

n the bathroom, Laura was humming. She turned the shower tap to ten o’clock and flipped on the overhead fan. “Give me five minutes and then you can get in,” she said to her daughter, then stepped over the tub’s edge. The shower walls were made of white tile. The grout was stained in some places and scrubbed clean in others, with a white plastic curtain on one side and shampoo bottles littering the corners. “Can I get in now?” Laura’s daughter said four minutes later as she pulled back the curtain and stepped into the ceramic tub. Laura adjusted the tap so it wouldn’t smart when it touched the girl’s young skin. The daughter’s breasts were taking shape like new persimmons, set beneath a guiltily happy face. “Probably don’t tell your friends that you still shower with your mom,” Laura would say every time. The girls had bathed together since the daughter was small. Grace liked for her mother to wash her hair, waited patiently for the moment when Laura’s open palm requested a squeeze of Pantene. “Don’t use your fingernails,” the daughter would whine, but then, when Laura went to rinse the suds, “Wait, just scrub for one more minute.” Often, the girl would compare her body to her mother’s. When she was smaller, she pointed to the hair at Laura’s crotch and asked, “Why don’t I have that?” Now, it was a question of how old the mother was when her panties first stained red. Laura did not remember, and that ability to forget astonished the daughter. She asked again on occasion in case her mother’s memory had resurfaced. 28

Sometimes, the two would gossip under the gentle stream, Laura asking which middle-school boys were the cutest or the smartest. “What did you do in school today?” she asked as she passed Grace a bar of soap. “We started watching a movie in English,” Grace replied. Laura gave a thin smile. She was a teacher too; she recognized the relief of a Friday film. “What was it?” she said. “Princess Bride.” “Oh! You know your dad and I saw that on our first date? You’ve never seen that before?” “No, I didn’t know that.” “In college. We went to this old movie theatre.” “Mm.” The daughter liked when Laura told stories like this. She soaped her armpits a second time so that her mother would keep talking. “I don’t think it’s even there anymore. The seats were velvet, like dark red. Your dad borrowed his friend’s car to drive us.” The daughter pictured a green four-door with the type of windows you had to crank to roll down. Her mother was wearing light brown oxfords. “We sat in the front row,” Laura went on. “Had to ask someone to move down so we could have two seats together.” “Oh my god,” Grace said. She had seen her mother do this before. It made her uncomfortable. The mother said, “It was fine.” She pushed her daughter forward as the shower temperature fluctuated and started to burn. She had been meaning to get the water heater fixed. “What did you do after that?” the girl asked. “We got ice cream, I think.” Strawberry, the daughter thought. And they would have held hands, cupped like a firm but gentle hug, but not woven. It was dark out as they walked along the street by the movie theatre, light pooling occasionally under a streetlamp. They both licked slowly from their ice cream cones. She couldn’t hear what they were talking about, could see their mouths moving, but couldn’t catch the sounds. At a bench on the sidewalk, the two sat down. Her mother crossed her legs gently, angling the knees toward her father. The mother’s small gold watch glinted 29

in the yellow glow of the streetlamp as she placed her free hand on the bench. Even sitting, Grace couldn’t hear their voices, only the crickets chirping. But Grace’s mother laughed then, softly, as the father pulled the paper wrapper off his cone. They didn’t kiss. Grace had seen them kiss at an anniversary party once. She had seen other people kiss in instances of peer pressure at the bus stop. But here, her parents simply sat on the bench awhile, and then they got up. “Are you guys drowning in there or what?” her dad called from the bedroom then. “I guess we better get out, huh,” Laura said. “Here, wash your belly button first.” The girls giggled like petty thieves as they finally emerged. The drain gurgled, swallowing its last drips, and the dog nudged the bathroom door open with his nose. “Uh oh, here he comes,” Laura said. The mother pulled her towel from the door handle, the daughter got hers from the toilet’s lid, and the two of them patted down their raw skin as the dog licked at their gently dripping ankles.

You Can’t See Me SOPHIE ROSS WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS, ‘23 WATERCOLOR

Things I Saw LYDIA NICKELS, WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS, ‘21

Let me close my eyes

In my mind I let myself wonder

There are three women before me: There is an open car door A black plastic bag Sweat smeared on a pew

At how sad it can be Where do they go when they— I don’t know When they go in their tiny graves?

My eyes are closed

Let me close my eyes

And I see my mother Scrubbing out the driver’s seat There are secrets in the bloody water Sloshing across my driveway

There are many women before me There are whispers in the air There are black plastic bags Buried in the garden

It’s dark in my mind And I see my brother crouched In his dirty office, pointing outside Somewhere behind the guard house There is a very small grave Let me keep my eyes shut There is blood on the road Leading towards Arusha And there are many voices living In that house two of them shared

Valentines SARA RIZZOLI, WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS, ‘23

The plastic hearts strung above the doorway glowed bloody red. Quit your daydreaming, her boss told her, when she fudged the decorative lines on a dark chocolate-raspberry truffle, but the lights tugged irresistibly. She pulled a bit of dry skin between her teeth and imagined closing her jaw around one of those hearts, breaking it open like a nutcracker. The door had chimed a death knell when she saw his face. Straight nose, crooked teeth, muddy brown eyes she once suffocated in. The hand that used to make her squirm in pleasure, intertwined with a stranger’s. Now he stared at his phone screen while the stranger perused the rows of confectionery, pretending, always pretending. She curled her tongue towards the back of her throat and sucked on it. Pretending. “Can I get two of the white chocolate-pistachio… two Irish coffee… one Vietnamese cinnamon… oh! and one fleur de sel?” The stranger’s eyes were cotton candy blue. She twitched her lips in a performative grimace before sliding open the door of the glass casing. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him approach the register on stiff legs. “Thank you!” beamed the stranger, accepting the white paper bag. He rummaged through an overstuffed wallet, extracting a credit card and sliding it across the counter. “Thanks,” he mumbled, staring at the nametag pinned to her chest, “…uh, Kat.” Crack went the glowing heart, spilling hot liquid inside her mouth, and she smiled wide so he could watch it drip off her teeth.

Deep Within and Far Outside STACEY CHENG RHODE ISLAND SCHOOL OF DESIGN ‘21 OIL ON CANVAS 35

untitled SIERRA REVELS, WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS, ‘22

first delilah they called her a whore because a woman is defined only by what she takes from man seductress sapping strength like eve who tricked adam never let us forget the first transgression second delilah she was a sinner made impure she had a back-alley abortion removed from the record but she could not strike the stain from her flesh third delilah no, i tell my mother i am not your daughter anymore. today i choose to make myself new to fashion my own form i am more than an extra rib.

She MADI FANG

WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS, ‘24 DIGITAL 36

ode NICOLE ADABUNU, WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY, ‘21

to all the girls who carry phantom men in the branches of their body: the women never left in the right hands: child of crimson cotton: i love you. tell me where you go to stop the shaking. & i will crawl with you there. i won’t allow another boy to wear your blood home, do you hear me. god bless your womb alive & if you’ve ever tried to drink your body dry of him or scrape your skin of his scent, i will hold you ‘til i break his refrain from your bones, sing with me, songs of sunlight spilling honey & staining our eyes golden i will hold you : up to the light : you are not broken glass, ghost girl, i love you. and your tremble heartbeat. staccato spasms. do you hear it. listen. listen. fuck god but may he bless your bones alive