vol. III
The
Aster Review
2018–2019
The
Aster Review a literary & arts magazine
volume no. 3 | 2018–2019
staff Editor-in-chief
Senior Editor
Managing Editor
Communications chair
Reid Bartholomew
James Farner
Kayla E. Ciardi
Abigail Clarke
Editorial Board Mary Todd Anthony Allison Bialas Julie Bahr Andrew Carr Getty Hesse Jaylen Jones
Sydney McClellon Tyler McElroy Eleanor Mendelson Ian Miller Joyce Ho Matthew Viriyapah
Cover Image “Water to the Stone� (2018) by Mia Pons; mono-print, drawing, collage, embroidery
Interior Layout and Design Kayla E. Ciardi
University of Oklahoma 630 Parrington Oval Norman, OK 73019
Table of Contents Letter from the Editor 1 Nimexicatl—I, mexicano T. Patrick Ortez 3 Agonistes Harold Naseby 4 Mind Eraser Sarah Alexander 4 Bjork’s Playhouse Katie Murray 5 In Dan Groeneveld 6 Yellow Consciousness Lupita Gonzalez 7 Ugly Abyss Leanna Ho 8 It Feels Good Mackenzie Mullins 9 8 Hours Dan Groeneveld 10 Sisters Not Twins Alyx Butt 11 Concatenation Madison Lowry 12 Cotton Candy Sunrise Lauren Tuck 13 Molting Anna Miller 14 Learning to Let the Weeds Grow Rachel Beer 15 December Poems Abby Beliveau 16 Tangle Rachel Beer 18 Holes Aren’t Holy Kayla Esther Ciardi 19 A Place to Build Your Nest Rachel Beer 23 Peaking Twilight Christian Newkirk 24 Reincarnation Alice Susanna McCaskill 25 Bone Yarrow Jennifer Pusavat 26 Series, Haiku T. Patrick Ortez 27 Budapest Ella Parsons 28 Palace of the Winds Ella Parsons 29 Small Town Gastronomy Michael Danielle Patton 30 Fruit of the Legume Olivia Harris 33 Escape Lupita Gonzalez 34 Burlesque Hannah Wyatt 36 Being Grackles Scott Maiorca 37 Mushroomville Asha Chidambaram 39 Empress of China Matthew Viriyapah 40 The Martian Hannah Wyatt 41 Drew Asha Chidambaram 42 Thinker Ella Parsons 43 Central Time Robert Gibson 44 Crab Claws Sarah Alexander 45 One Arts Plaza Helena Hind 46 Idiosyncratic Alice Susanna McCaskill 47 Curls Celia D. Bateman 48
A Standard Trouble Christian Newkirk 50 How Do You Feel Now? Mia Pons 51 Dear Mr. Hughes T. Patrick Ortez 52 Are You Happy Now? Mia Pons 53 Someone Like Me Tiffanie Vo 54 Angered Calm Christian Newkirk 55 Nostalgia Emily Tucker 56 Bike Dream Jacob Mattke 57 A Field in Which to Rest Rachel Beer 58 Shapeshifter T. Patrick Ortez 60 Water to the Stone Mia Pons 61 Falling Up & Falling Down Mia Pons 61 Unheard M. Muneeb Ata 62 Don’t Move Honey Hannah Wyatt 64 Ephemerality Hannah Frome 65 Currents Lupita Gonzalez 66 Road Trip Madison Jarboe 67 Cosmic Alyx Butt 68 Your Nose to Limit Narrows Andrew Carr 69 Can We Start Over? Page 1 Katie Murray 70 Special Thanks 71
Dear Reader, It’s with great pride and, admittedly, a tinge of wistfulness that I am able to present to you Volume III of The Aster Review. Throughout the past three years, I’ve found myself continually humbled as I’ve worked on this publication. I’ve been fortunate enough to be a first-hand witness to the creativity that abounds on this campus and the diligence of all of the students who have been working tirelessly to showcase that creativity. What I love about this publication is in part its simplicity; there isn’t any significant incentive to participate, yet the team of editors and all of the creators dedicate themselves out of nothing more than the artistic impulse to share and experience the varying dimensions of humanity.
the editor
letter from
Gratitude is what I’m always filled with as I look at the finished product of The Aster Review. I’m grateful first and foremost to the members of the editorial board, without whom none of these pages would be in your hands right now—I cannot stress enough how much time and effort they’ve expended in service of this publication. I’m also grateful for the guidance of our mentors at World Literature Today who continue to support us at every turn. More than anything, however, I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to step into the lives of my peers here at the University of Oklahoma through their work. As we go through the submissions—which have grown in number every year—there’s a sense of closeness with the community and a pride in the vibrance of their work and passions. When you read through these pages, it is our hope that you feel that same connection and pride. I remember spending hours of my sophomore year in Monnet Hall agonizing over the name before deciding on The Aster Review, but none of us realized then just how fitting it would come to be. While lovely on their own, the true beauty of aster flowers is found in their plurality, when the wind ripples through fields of their purple hue. Thank you for being a part of that gathering as a reader, and we hope that you enjoy. Reid Bartholomew, Editor-in-Chief April 16, 2019
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Nimexicatl—I, mexicano T. Patrick Ortez My lips have never said these words. My tongue is untrained, Slips on foreign syllables. Trying to find a voice— Only new words To bridge the emptiness. I did not learn What it is to be me— I read it in a textbook. If Death houses All my family, I’ll need a dozen tongues to say: I do not eat mole I do not fear the cucuy La Llorona haunts the rivers Only when I dream of her. These words are not my words. These sounds are not my sounds. “Ni” refers to yo— An i that is not mine.
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Agonistes Harold Naseby
scholars rage Milton, blindly against obscenities they won’t listen, no matter how we cry—myself am hell only the dead liven debates the living, mausoleums of corroding paper, rattle bones for Charon’s coin if we could topple, Samson-like academic Philistine maybe the light would sting, callous eyes—fuck that shit! we rail they only cough, back to us genteel the same.
Mind Eraser Sarah Alexander
Styx may have its glamor, but I like River Lethe— Take a ladle from the water; transfix the gnashing teeth. You can teethe in all the lament, your fire; sorrow too, But still do me a favor, and just give the Devil due— He did—God forbid—think of ‘Drink to Forget!’
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Bjork’s Playhouse Katie Murray
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in outside standing there — i’d like to take You out of my head and walk You down hallmark streets to figure You out
Dan Groeneveld
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Yellow consciousness Lupita Gonzalez
Ugly Abyss Leanne Ho jealousy is a polite word for ownership for possession of another’s affection as if their attention could be weighed and divided impartiality of the inherently partial he laughs too loud, too hard at your jokes and I want to snatch your smiles out of the air before he can have them I want to stake my territory with my lips warning bruises on your neck I want to hold your words close to my heart keeping me warm, and me alone but this ugly abyss in my chest could swallow all your love and still be cold dark lacking the problem isn’t him or you or anyone but me I know it is unhealthy but tell me, don’t you ever fear scarcity? a primally wired aversion to loss you could come back to me but you could not maybe you leave because I’m too much and I take you back because I’m not enough
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Mackenzie Mullins
It Feels Good
It Feels Good
Mackenzie Mullins
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8 Hours Dan Groeneveld A solitary night looking in the mirror When I held myself in my hands Felt the clay unformed And imagined all the happy mornings Where each dawn saw me Form and shape myself Unafraid of clay But truth is not such an easy thing And sense was coming through Full-formed bust of me in hand Baked hard by time And covered in the fingerprints of chance
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Sisters Not Twins Alyx Butt
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Concatenation Madison Lowry
That night I laid out on the concrete of the playground in front of her apartment, watching
the un-mowed grass dancing with light and summer gnats—beautiful like a scene from a Miyazaki film. The smoke from my cigarette looked like the faces of our friends who had died young; thank god they drifted up to the street lamps before they had the chance to form a throat and remind me of what a lousy coward I was. She was hanging upside down from a tire swing, staring at the rooftops. Inside, we listened to a song and I cried like the time the pastor held me underwater, yelling hallelujah because he thought he saved me. She asked, “What are you thinking? Tell me—please.” And I promise that I wanted to but couldn’t because I felt like a computer waking, breaking algorithms of feeling, growing conscious. So I was silent. Thinking about all the ways a soul can hurt. I processed everything I wanted to tell her as images, as a Technicolor View-Master. A heavy, apricot sunset off the highway. The man in the melting butterfly wings with the chorus behind him singing about Casimir Pulaski. Doorways of places I left for the last time. Her, hanging from the tire swing, in the moment that I wanted to kiss her. The next morning, I was sorry that I had to leave without saying goodbye. The red light coming in through the window, it was incessant. I couldn’t sleep. Driving to the lake before going home, I realized how ridiculous it would sound to say that out loud. It really wasn’t the light. Anyway, when I said I had trouble sleeping, what I meant was that I couldn’t remember who I was anymore. At the lake, a blue heron matched the color of the budding sunrise matching the color of the water and, for a moment, it all made some god-damn sense. I remembered how, when I was a child, I thought that only I could see the heron that crept along my parents’ creek and I considered him a secret. That’s the kind of child I was—imaginative, secretive. Carrying a whole world unshared inside my head, overseen by a great blue heron. I didn’t know how to tell her any of this. The note I wrote for her read, the serpent me beguiled and I did eate. I always liked that line but it didn’t feel quite right because I thought it seemed clever when I was trying to be earnest. So I tried Duras. Please, devour me. Devour me to the point of ugliness. But that felt pitiful. What I wanted to say, what the excited and terrified thing inside of me was singing, simply was impossible to put down so I drew a picture, a sketch of her Converse from memory. I thought, how could I possibly tell someone I love them and not know the intimate details of their sneakers? I don’t know where it came from, this idea about the sneakers. It wasn’t how I was raised to understand love. Love, as I saw it as a child, was indoctrinated in procreation, necessity, and the absolute absence of all affection. It was seen to that I understood this very early. That’s why I am in knots about all this. I am unlearning all these Evangelical rules of intimacy like a clown pulling five miles of scarves out of his pocket that he never should have had to begin with.
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So, this is what I wanted to say that night; it’s taken me a long time to understand what it is I am feeling. Maybe it could have been uncomplicated. I’m sorry. Maybe I’m messing all this up. What I mean to say is, there is a world with her and me in it with that blue heron officiating. A world where the sun is rising and setting at the same time. A world where she’s leaning against the door frame of a home I never have to leave.
Cotton Candy Sunrise
Lauren Tuck
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Molting
Rachel Beer
Anna Miller
learning to let the weeds grow
Trailer house window wide open, screen popped off. Light filtered through the bedroom curtain like a beacon. A homecoming gift. Concert of clashing cricket legs as night-song. The July air feels like blanket, warm cotton for barely covered skin. June bugs stick in the hair and mosquitos drink from the heart. The taste of chlorine and popsicle is undeniable. I am insatiable. My grandmother’s slight southern drawl almost sounds like syrup, honey, molasses. Almost feels like comfort, muzzled jaw or lighter tongue some kind of safety from teeth. Oklahoma was hot, skin beet-red under sunlight slowly peel back what died while the cicadas weep for another lost shell. Sweat feels like déjà vu, the body knows when there is too much to keep in. The lake reeks of near-death experience. The mayflies are all dying and that seems fitting. Short-lived love for life before the great collapse
December Poems
1.
Abby Beliveau
How do you write your eights? When the bottle is too hard to reach, Will your hand still fit around my wrist? A square candle still burns the same and The self-help books you gave me Were boring Give me Just Kids Hell Give me As I Lay Dying Give me more than platitudes If I have to write one more Damn paper on the use of Color in film, I might just Throw black paint on everything The light touches
2.
Quite literally twice my age, Are your subway tiles like mine? Rectangles or squares? Don’t lie. I’ll know. What color is your purple car? I think I scraped the bumper the Last time I pulled out of our lot I wonder what you’d look like in A white button-down and black tie Do you still have those? Is your closet by the furnace? You’ve grown much kinder since You made me cry construction paper tears Quieter, like the Soft pink Subway tiles In my bathtub
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3.
Your purple glaze drips differently than mine It isn’t a bad thing I like our Venn diagram When it is slippery out I know that you will always Grab my forearm tightly Nothing got broken today If I did not make this cup, But I love it all the same, May I call it mine? If I made this bowl, But it was inspired by you, May I call it yours? I will keep them safe I promise Hidden snacks and feline footprints Are our chestnuts roasting, champagne toasting It isn’t a holiday without you Brown paper bag, red bandana You give me light through the Crinkled tissue paper
4.
Pack it all in, sweetheart When you think it through Think again; just remember the reference dear Ask if they know how to Glue a marble back together And if they don’t know, Ask what to do with a dead marble It was your marble Is a mausoleum reference too on-the-nose? Do you remember playing Mancala? The noise of tiny glass-on-glass? Peaceful isn’t a strong enough word for How it makes me feel
5.
Comercial-break free, she eats apples every day The wire is fragile, like a cookie-cutter home. How do you look so damn much like your mother?
I don’t drink coffee anymore But that sound? That glass-on-glass It still smells like the Coffee you made for me
Ankle deep in mall bought perfume You keep your haircut the same But spell your name strangely A soda machine bulldozed; A crackling mic Sounds like popcorn to me
6.
Your brother should have played rugby, but After he broke his nose, contact sports Were out of the question That was the year he stole a $2,000 guitar And 7 cases of bud light from Walmart I heard him playing “Mama Tried” in his Childhood bedroom the next day I almost understood the intrusion
The music swells but This curry is too loud I hate cloth this bleach white and rough My thighs are sweating and are Sticking to this red leather booth The water is too cold The lights are too dim
Your mother should have sought comfort Perhaps her credibility has been null & void Since the onset, but I suppose I Always gave you your due consideration Perhaps the barrier is weaker than we thought Beneath the second cupboard in the kitchen From the left, on the western wall I found your snarl Deep and luscious The viscosity of radiation sickness A secretion through false walls I wonder what year this home was built
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Tangle
Rachel Beer
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Holes Aren’t Holy and Cats Don’t Need Singing Kayla Esther Ciardi
Shuck, shuck, shuck went the dirt—shuck, shuck, shuck—like a hymn, and Arlene’s shovel
the conductor. The dirt clung to the rib of her socks and fell down against her ankles; the soft granules might have tickled, if she’d had any feeling. Arlene rolled backwards, her wheels resisting in the grass for only a moment. She shivered, wiping chilly sweat from her hairline, and rested the shovel against the wheelchair’s side. It wasn’t deep but it’d have to do. Any deeper she might hit lake water and the last thing she wanted was Bramble buried in mud. He never did much like being wet. Her gaze drifted from the hole to Greenfield Lake. Its still surface expanded backwards and vanished into the morning fog, suspended in the space between liquid and air. Children’s laughter coasted across the water and Arlene could just make out their scampering silhouettes along the tree line. Every Sunday from here onward she would come to this place, Arlene decided. She would come and Bramble’s grave would keep her company against the noisy children and the fog. Her gaze buckled from the water to her wrinkly, speckled hands. Liver spots, they were called. Organs on the skin, like God is turning you inside out, trying to undo the work of the womb. She decided it: on Sundays she would come here, come to this consecrated grave. Maybe on those pious mornings she would hum Bramble a song, pretend to pray. Bramble’s absence would be less felt here than in the house, with him in the ground. And then, maybe— “Arlene!” Arlene turned from the lake to the stooped figure approaching on her right. Frank’s saggy arm waved. As he got nearer, she could see how his Adam’s apple hung droopy and rotten. He was yelling. He couldn’t hear worth shit. “Now what’s this business with the shovel?” He looked at the size of the hole and the cardboard box on the ground. “Hi, Frank.” “Lemme help you. Here.” He grabbed the shovel and poked into the ground, leaned in with his foot. The dirt gave way beneath the iron and the hole opened up. “Oh, now Maisie told me what happened with poor old Bramble—” “Frank, I can do it. I can—”
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“—and I think it’s real awful the way he went but we was talking it over and you know, it’s not your fault. Hell, Arlene, I forget to turn things off all the—” “Frank, dammit. Give me the shovel!” He stopped shoveling. “What?” “I said I can do it myself.” Arlene stuck out her hand and reached for the handle, but Frank was too far away. He took a step back and Arlene’s hand fell back, gripping the ring of her wheel. “Now, I’m just trying to help you, Arlene.” “Well, I don’t need it.” “Sorry?” Frank leaned in, cupping his ear. He ought to get hearing aids. She ought to find him pamphlets. She ought to grab the shovel and soften his temple with it so his brains slipped out like vomit from his ears; she ought to invite him over for tea and leave the water unboiled and blow out the stovetop’s blue flames, shut the doors and windows and leave him there, like Bramble, to asphyxiate. “I said I don’t need your help.” “Well, all right Arlene but, uh, don’t be so hard on yourself, you hear me? Maisie and I was thinking about stopping by soon and giving you a card—she’s so nice with them crafts, you know—or maybe…” Frank mumbled some more and handed back the shovel. He tipped his hat. “Anyway goodbye, Arlene.” “Yeah, Frank.” Arlene had never wanted the cat. They were useless pets—didn’t do a damned thing except sit there. Before the car accident, she had always imagined having a dog, that is, once she had moved out of her mother’s, who had never been very agreeable towards the idea. She would imagine running beside a lean-muscled hound, chasing after nothing, through the tall, yellow grasses of a prairie. She would imagine herself submerged in the murky waters of Greenfield Lake with the slimy dog paddling nearby. And she would surface, and as she rose the water would slide down her body. She would climb up the bank and lay in the damp grass and the hound would sniff the ground before settling into the shape of a fuzzy spud. Really the accident hadn’t deterred her from the dog; it was everybody else. There was this one time at Langford Grocers—she was twenty-three and it’d only been four months since the accident—that Frank and Mr. Langford spoiled the whole idea of the hound. She’d grown up with Frank, like she’d grown up with everybody in this small town, and he always took it so upon himself to be gentlemanly, to help out. So they went together in the afternoon. He pushed her chair from behind while she held the shopping basket in her lap. He handed her goods from the shelves and she set them neatly in. “What’s next, Arly Mae?” Frank drummed on the wheelchair handles. “Beef? Bacon?” “Eggs.” She twisted around. “You don’t put bacon in strawberry pie.” “You could, you know. Might not taste so good, but you could do it.” “Take me to the eggs, will you?” He rolled her up to the egg cartons. Rows, horizontal and vertical. Arlene lifted the nearest carton’s lid. Smooth, hard, white, and round. She liked eggs. She liked that you could break them. When she was three or four, her Papa used to wake her up before Momma and
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they’d walk to the kitchen together—all on tiptoe—and they’d play humpty dumpty. He’d hold the egg on the edge of the counter. “Humpty Dumpty!” Arlene would squeal. Then Papa would let go of the egg and she’d watch it plummet towards the linoleum, swiveling and turning in the air, and he always caught it right at the last second, when she thought he never could—not this time—not so close to the hard, hard floor. She laughed and laughed, and Papa’d pinch her cheek. Then he scrambled Humpty Dumpty and at breakfast, they ate him. Momma almost never knew because it was their secret. Once Arlene snuck out of bed to play humpty dumpty on her own. Papa was dead then and Arlene dropped the eggs on the floor and watched the yolks slide from their shattered shells across the kitchen. She squished them under her toes. Humpty Dumpty, Humpty Dumpty. Again and again until a dozen eggs lay splattered at her feet. He was always meant to fall. Momma came in wearing her robe and hollered. Frank stopped in front of the jam jars. “You want some peach preserves?” He reached for the top shelf. Arlene shook her head. “I’m alright, Frank.” “One for me, then.” He set a jar on top of the egg carton. From behind the counter Mr. Langford smiled. “Frank,” he nodded. “And Miss Arlene,” he said, looking down. She lifted the basket on the counter. “Any trouble?” “No, sir,” she said. Mr. Langford pulled on his beard with one hand as he punched the register buttons with the other. He bagged the flour, the berries, the eggs. “By the way, y’all know Ms. Martha? Cat had a litter yesterday.” He handed the bag to Arlene. “Three dollars, twenty-five. Anyway, she come in this morning and told me to spread the word.” Arlene counted change in her palm. “She’s got no need for four mouse-catchers. Looking to find any takers, else they’ll probably be left on their own outside.” “How about that, Arlene?” said Frank. “Ain’t you said you wanted a cat?” “I said I wanted a dog,” Arlene reached out. “Here you go, Mr. Langford. No change.” He counted the coins. Arlene counted with him. Again. “Well dogs need lots of work, Miss Arlene. Lots of exercise too. And they’ll tear up a house if they ain’t trained properly.” He pressed a hand on the counter, leaning forward. “A cat’s better suited, especially for somebody in your condition.” Arlene nodded. “Yes, sir. I reckon they are.” “We’ll pass on the news, Mr. Langford.” The door jingled behind them as Frank rolled Arlene back down the sidewalk. “He is right, you know, Arly. I guess you’ll have to make some adjustments here and there, sorry to say. It ain’t fair, now, I’m not saying that it is. There’s probably a bright side to all this, if you just look for it.” His hand rested on her left shoulder, a light pressure like all those doctors checking her pulse, and then it was gone. *** Arlene looked into the hole. She held the cardboard box in her arms and opened it, took out the limp bundle, dropped the box to the side, held the bundle against her chest like a baby, like she ought to sing a lullaby but didn’t know any. Bramble used to stretch in her lap, tail swishing and kissing her chin while he kneaded into her unfeeling thighs. He
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used to jump on the windowsill and take in the sun like a morning glory. That day in Langford’s she had sworn she’d never get a cat. But then when she was fifty and still alone, every house visitor always peered about her empty house and then back at Arlene as if to confirm the suffocating loneliness of her situation. Arlene couldn’t bear it anymore: their whispers and their looks and their little visits. She had to appease them. She caved. Caved for Bramble the cat. She looked at Frank’s pile of dirt beside the hole, the hole she had started and he finished. Then Arlene yelled. It was shrill and embarrassing, an undesirable sound coming from deep within her sagging chest. She was breathing hard. When she looked up, she noticed the children across the lake had stopped playing. They were staring at her and then they turned away. With Bramble’s limp body in in her lap, Arlene reached for the shovel. Gripping its wooden handle like the staff of some prophet, she raised the shovel in the air and threw it away from her body into the grass. Her eyes welled up and she cursed, burying her nose in Bramble’s smelly fur. He probably would have had five more years left in him. If she hadn’t always kept the windows tightly shut, if she hadn’t forgotten the eggs at the store that day and left the gas burner on and then gone for a long strolling roll around the neighborhood before heading to the store for more eggs, if she hasn’t taken so long, if she hadn’t resented him, if she hadn’t been in her situation, if everyone in this goddamn town wasn’t so full of shit, so deaf like Frank, then maybe, maybe, Bramble would have had five more years left in him. But as it so happened. Arlene’s breath slowed. The shovel had landed about ten feet away. Arlene considered it. She considered retrieving it. She leaned down towards the dirt and pressed her hands into the soil. She could crawl to it, drag herself to the handle and finish what she had begun before Frank had come along. She could do it. She could cover it up, keep it hidden and tucked away all neat and orthodox where nobody’d have to confront it, or look at it straight on, though obscured, its body darkened and damp and limp and broken in the dirt. But maybe it needed to be left open. Reckoned with, accounted for, admired. Not shut up in the ground with no air, like the windows tightly shut and bottling up fumes. Open the window, air out the house. Let Bramble breathe. Arlene rolled back onto the sidewalk. In the park she left a broken patch of uncovered ground. Down in the patch there was a wrapped bundle and later, a hungry crow.
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A place to build your nest Rachel Beer
Peaking Twilight
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Christian Newkirk
Reincarnation Alice Susanna McCaskill The fairies tried to kiss me, but they didn’t ask me first As they sunk their tiny sharp teeth in my lips and nose and shirt And the goblins they did grumble at this breach in manners fine As the dragons roared in outrage at their crossing of the line The elves they tried to help me as they combed through tattered hair And the witches tried to save me from the flesh that bore the tears And the fairies watched in disdain as the wisps they bore away All the work the little beasts had done to me in their own way And I didn’t wake when laid in groves that grew up with green grass Didn’t stir from my deep slumber when the winds they kissed me fast And the roots they grew upon me with the days that did go on And the sun it did come daily to give watch from each new dawn And I didn’t gasp alive and laid in slumber thin and bland Didn’t have the decency to die and move to heaven’s sands So I sat within the forest and became a rock at last Where the fairy’s children came to play within the soft sweet grass
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Bone yarrow Jennifer Pusavat
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Series, Haiku T. Patrick Ortez
White snow falls outside White like bones and this blank page Sleeps away idle The dutiful mind Runs to the ends of the earth Still and unmoving Night falls like a quilt Too dark to do anything By orange lantern light I must be such things Deep, broad, keen, brief, elegant My pen hand stands still White snow falls too fast Touches ground already grey One stroke is every
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Budapest Ella Parsons The memories rupture and crest, escalating from blue buses Crisply printed violet tickets sit folded neatly in coat pockets. Tempered boreal pines grow along the airport road Black brush strokes are painted for the bark is quiet and oscillated. The forest stillness begging for stories of silent folktales. My hair is tied, An Italian red scarf is holding my bobbed wisps in place. I leave keys on cupboards. My departure is made without fusses. An untouched lover left in bed, revealing a lemony bare chest, A serene face bent to the side, sleeping lids trained on Infinite Jest. The door light is mellow, haunting some postwar apartment. The angels are coming down on snowflakes From church spires and neo-gothic facades Your fingers are going numb on a March evening And you’re kissing the edge of the Danube As the street cars are slipping over White bearings and foreign tongues crash against the pavement. You are carrying pastry crumbs in the fold of your shirt. Eyes closed along river banks; as you search For the underground complaints of the subway Rendered complacent by layers of earth. The innumerous histories of dissolving limestone Snaking beneath the copper domed skyline Beneath pewter grids that ensnare church crypts. With lucid dreams flavored with elderflower and lime, Alcohol sublime, dropped with quince blossoms The church bells rumble and chime with copper For stolen silver stories were liquified. Pressed to compress to steal, to kill those lives away. The remaining swing and sway, now Automated to chime by night and day,
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The fire bruises the former church spire, Leaving the copper and silver bells to melt away. Revenants of ash scar the walls, a belfry now an empty nest. For the diaspora of Jewish tombstones are returned— To pink corridors and rose colored halls Among silver cases from looted homes, With marked leaves we take our leave, Tears hot and lost down my cheeks. I’m catching snowflakes on my hat For the daylight parts and the lovers are missed. The whites and copper blues of the city gleam— As the smoke curls incandescent, Over red brick that is Soviet-kissed For the guess and guild work lies guarded, As an unfamiliar city is lost to cognizance. We are marooned by silence and suicide. Post-Soviet neighborhoods meader along. Lilies guard the the locked Calvinist churches We sit, feet dangling over the Danube, Wondering what would happen if we slipped— Negating my desire to place a kiss with my lips. The copper laurels thrust skyward towards emancipation, So we play games with our scars, Skipping stones over white spires— Lost to adolescent fantasy Burgundy-domed hope, we aspire But as lost lovers our hopes drowned as, Remnants of apathy do conspire. Two lovers separated by a cold rift. We are two cities split by a river: Merged together over time, Citizens mingled and fraught, Bound together by social memory Rivers bar us from touching Tunnels carving out our insides. You still dare not to speak to me, Yet I weep, my memories of you Lodged on Hungarian streets.
palace of the winds Ella Parsons
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Small Town Gastronomy Michael Danielle Patton
Fathers eat their children. Mothers do too, but less often. They are more likely to cook you.
They’ll salt, and season, and broil, and bake, but mothers hardly ever eat. They just prepare you—for your father’s stale-tobacco teeth. I knew a family down in Wickiup, Oklahoma—back when I still called that place home. I did not know the children; their feasts happened before my time. But I’ve heard the talk: at Grandma’s Thursday Bunco and on the last Sunday of every month, over Prayer Breakfast. It might be hard for you to imagine—parents feasting on their own flesh and blood—but their stories are as real to me as the gnashing of their father’s teeth. *** Sophie was the oldest. It makes sense that she’d be the first. It happened young, too. She was nine, and she was tall for her age, and she always wore her hair in high ponytails. She loved The Land Before Time and the color yellow. That day, she was wearing her favorite unicorn hoodie and yellow pants. But the kids at recess didn’t notice her unicorn hoodie or the way she wore her hair or the fact that she was tall for her age; they just saw the bright red bloom on her lap. She became overwhelmed and thought of Dorothy, asleep in the field of red and yellow poppies. “But that’s impossible—she’s just nine years old!” her teacher cried, before calling her parents. Her mother was at work still but her father was on his lunch break. On the car ride to the drug store, she felt how disgusted he was with her. She knew this was her fault. He wouldn’t walk down the aisle with her. Sophie was alone, in front of little pink and green and yellow boxes adorned with words she had never heard before: Feminine Hygiene, Ultra-Absorbent, Menstrual Pad. She picked the one that was yellow. Her father sent her to her room to wait for her mother, and when her mother came home, she began to prepare Sophie. They say when she cut her open that a sugar bowl— white, and painted with blue flowers—was where her heart should have been. As Sophie slow-roasted, her mother took the sugar bowl and emptied it and made a sweet barbecue glaze. And when her father bit into her, he cried, “You’re not my little girl anymore.” *** Billie was next, though she prefers Bill. She was fifteen when it happened. Bill wore masculinity as well as she wore her worn-out leather boots. She preferred Levi’s, and always wore two sports bras to hide the swell of her chest. She was bull-headed and stubborn. And on Sundays, Bill would argue with her mother and cry—hateful, ugly tears—when her
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mother would force her to wear makeup. Bill hated that it made her look like a porcelain doll: fragile, feigned femininity. It happened on a Sunday, during one of these fights. Bill came downstairs, dressed in her Sunday best: one of her brother’s suits and her father’s black oxfords. Her mother bawled at the sight of her and grabbed her roughly by the arm. She marched Bill back upstairs to her dressing-table and hit her hard—twice—on her bottom with her antique wooden hairbrush. And as Bill wept, she unlaced her father’s black oxfords and removed her brother’s suit and slipped into a baby-blue blouse and a flower print skirt that fell to her knees. After church, she sat between her mother and father as they spoke to their pastor about her recent behavior. He said, “Let us prayer for Billie’s soul, and for her redemption through Christ. Let her, Dear Lord, become the kind of woman that praises you: a graceful daughter, wife, and mother.” And they drove a spit through her—almost immediately—and roasted her over an open flame and held their Bibles like weapons and read—over and over and over—Leviticus 20:13 until three words were all that she could hear: abomination, death, blood. And they say her meat was incredibly tender, because the salt from her tears seasoned her well. *** Hal was the third child. He was named for Haldon, a military man his father once knew and—the children assumed—respected. He was seventeen, and his thumb was calloused from flicking too many lighters for his lifetime. He smoked too much, but never in the house, and he loved to listen to Glass Animals while he got high. He loved nonsense. He loved Dali and surrealist films, and he drew people the way he saw them: naked and contorted, half-finished—because no life was simple enough to have a beginning and an end. And his father had been gnawing at him for years. Men don’t. Men don’t. “Then what do men do?” he asked, once. “Just look at your brother!” his father had bellowed. “Running back, first string as freshman, and none of your pussy nonsense.” But he liked nonsense, because it made more sense than anything else. And when his father found his nonsense one day—his sketches of crooked bodies, and his weed, and his print of Dali’s “The Great Masturbator”—he destroyed it and beat him well and threw his tenderized body on the grill. He was cut into thick Porterhouse steaks, trimmed with fat. *** Lincoln was the youngest, and his father’s favorite. He was thunder and lighting. He had a white flash of teeth, a white flash of hair, and they called him Zeus because he was a white flash on the field. At sixteen, he was a god; he could have anything—and anyone— he wanted. And he was a hungry god. His siblings resented him, because they thought he was whole—that he had never been devoured by their father. But what they didn’t know was that he was a ravenous god, because he had been devoured so young. At seven, he had found Bill’s discarded Barbies and he had asked her if he could have them. She said yes, of course, because Bill did not admire their tiny shoulders, and big hair, and painted lips like Lincoln did. He took them to his room, and laid them out across
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his floor, and used his mother’s hairbrush to carefully untangle their rat nest hair that Bill had left neglected for so long. His father found him there, a naked doll in his hands, and the room shook with his anger. His father grabbed a black trash bag, stuffed the Barbies inside, and took them out to the bonfire pit. There, he gave Lincoln the lighter fuel and ordered him to douse them with the foul-smelling liquid. And Lincoln, with a trembling lip, did so. His father took out his matchbox and struck a stick and, with a quick flick of his wrist, started the massacre. And the fire devoured them, and Lincoln watched as the orange flames ate their tiny shoulders and big hair and painted lips and he wept, silently, because men don’t. And his father threw him on the fire as well and let them roast together, until both boy and doll were black and blistered. His father then took his charred remains and feasted well. *** I was eighteen when it happened. Over the years, I had lost bits and pieces of myself to them: a slice of fat from my thigh, a cheek, a tongue. I was crying in my mother’s arms, because she wanted me to break up with my girlfriend. “Because, Danielle, what would they think? I can’t sleep, for the nightmares. What if the town finds out, the church. Your father’s a deacon! I’m sure you care for her—I know you must—but you can’t, not here!” And I screamed at her, “I never should have told you!” Hatred boiled in my mouth, and burnt my tongue. “What part of me will you take now? My ribs, my heart?!” Her face was red and fat with tears and she sobbed, “I love you.” And I collapsed into her arms because I knew—and I know—that she does. And my father, having heard the commotion, came into the living room to find us, crying and clinging to each other, desperately. My mother had told him, but I did not know. He sat across from me, his hand placed lovingly on my knee, and he said, “I have feared this day for so long.” I saw the pain in his eyes. I saw the future he had planned for me—a football player, linebacker, waiting at the altar, white dress, him, walking me down the aisle—burn before his eyes; his dreams for me were on a funeral pyre. His lips were thin, and tears blurred his face; I had never seen my father cry. “I’ll never be a grandfather…” Then, he asked, “Have you considered celibacy?” I went to the kitchen and grabbed a butcher’s knife. I handed it to him, wordlessly; how could I answer? My mother kissed my forehead and squeezed my hand before entering the kitchen. I followed, and my father followed me. We made sure the oven was at an appropriate degree and I laid myself before them on the kitchen table, and he began. A chuck roast here, a pork loin there. And when he was finished carving me—dividing me—my father placed me on the heated rack and I thought of Sylvia Plath. Once I was done and the dining table was set, my mother and father ate me. It was a quiet feast, a solemn affair, because the daughter they knew was dead. And I knew, then, that we are all reborn, of course, once digested and shit out—but we are not the same.
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Fruit of the Legume Olivia Harris
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escape
Lupita Gonzalez
burlesque
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Hannah Wyatt
Being Grackles Scott Maiorca
Crows, Ravens, and Grackles are quite creepy to me. I read “The Raven” in grade school
and spent weeks crossing the street every time I saw one. As I got older, they became fascinating because of their creepiness. When I was in middle school, we moved from Kadena air base in Okinawa, Japan to Lackland Airforce base in San Antonio, Texas. In San Antonio, Texas, I remember whole flocks of Crows infesting trees. The locals would run out with pots and pans, or even the occasional shotgun, to try and make enough noise to scare them away. I would sit transfixed, watching the black phantom mass of birds easily glide through the sky like a single cell, swishing and swirling, dancing with the hot night air. Manipulating gravity and spirit as easily as I might open a physical door. They danced through the air, never thinking, just doing, just being. They were the ideal of the Tao, or the Stoics, or the Mystics, or the Beats. They also weren’t Ravens or Crows. They were Grackles. When I was in in my twenties, I hit a period of drifting. Not the aimless drifting everyone seemed to think I was doing—I was in search of something I couldn’t explain. At least not to my parents and grandparents, as great and well-meaning as they were. Finding yourself was never a luxury they had. I drifted from college to college never quite seeming to find my place. I read everything I could get my hands on, gliding through poems and prose and fiction. I also consumed and craved music like an aural junkie. Somewhere in this lucid daydream I dove deep into the works of Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, and Allen Ginsberg. I dove deep into The Road and Mugwumps and OM, their Junkie poetry/prose covering my mind and body, quenching my thirst. I had the freedom to immerse myself—skinny dipping in all the words and music I craved. That was my Nirvana. That was my bliss. My ecstatic, life-altering bliss. That was also over twenty years ago. I’ve felt out of sorts and out of control for a few years, maybe decades. Approaching fifty, sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between years and decades. I was told if I ever grumbled about it, that’s just life. I believed it for a while. It was convenient to believe it. It was easier. Questioning is a luxury that the suburbs and kids and jobs seem to take away
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from you, forcing you to only see them. Only allowing you to remember, with great nostalgia, the world before them, leaving you out of sorts and feeling out of control. You quit being and simply run through the motions of everyday, just trying to get by and survive, like a parking lot Grackle scavenging for food. Parking lot Grackles look like crows on meth. They’re not afraid of people, but they are wary. They always seem to have one eye on you and one eye on the French fry a toddler dropped, as their parent tried stuffing them from their car seat into a shopping cart. This makes parking lot Grackles look twitchy, like they’re in need of a fix. It makes them seem out of place like they are trying to remember something they’ve forgotten. Like they have some faint memory of what their lives were before they became Parking Lot Grackles looking for toddlers’ dropped French fries. They may remember their past. They were regal, prized birds in Ancient Mexico. The Aztecs brought them to North America from Central America. Scientist say this is the first recorded incident of humans importing an invasive species and permanently altering an ecosystem. The Aztec rulers loved the Grackles’ plume, and Grackles were not to be harmed. They lived freely in Tenochtitlan, as well as every other Aztec city. The people planted trees surrounding the squares for the grackles to live in and gave them daily food offerings. The Parking Lot Grackles may remember that past. They may instinctively be attracted to our modern parking lots. Their twitchy junkie appearance may be the effect of remembering the Aztecs who adored them, and only finding dropped French fries in Safeway parking lots. They remember what was. They remember what could be. Like a giant single cell, all of the Grackles remember their glory, and they crave its return. Not for nostalgia and remembrance, but because they remember when they were whole. While they live in parking lots, they know there can be so much more, and it twists them. They run on instinct and sense memory and have to accept their fate and the toddler’s French fries, which twists them into Parking Lot Grackles. Modern life tends to do that to us. We know who we were in the past. We see what the world has made us. We know it could be so much more. The Beats saw this and went inside looking for the better path. Searching for their Dharma, their Tao, and fighting their demons. Humans have that choice. We have the luxury of changing our sense memory and our habits and our nostalgia. We have the luxury of change.
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Mushroomville Asha Chidambaram
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Empress of china Matthew Viriyapah
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The mArtian Hannah Wyatt
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Drew
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Asha Chidambaram
Ella Parsons
Thinker
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Crab Claws Sarah Alexander
Grill me alive. It’s not like I feel the pain; Still it won’t affect the effect on my brain. Drain the water, strain it hotter, it’s alright; Sane people know to show more of a fight. I put myself here, so I’m not blaming you. My own faults are to fault for letting it brew, But you knew how it hurt turning to stew, When you too were pouring your heart out.
Central Time
Robert Gibson
It’s all my fault; I shouldn’t fear what I feel; So speak or risk roasting for an entire ordeal. In heat of the moment, I’m still frozen still, And I can’t blame a man being ready to kill. Eat your heart out. I doubt you’ll like mine; I’ve lived most my life without heart or spine, So it’s fine line now between sugar and brine, And I dine with my heart in my mouth too. Sometimes I do go watch the crab scream; Watch him melt under pressure, lose steam, Turn red hot, caught dead right out of the pan, Transfigured to something quite less than a man. He boils in the water, but I’m ready to bleed! Some may say it lust, but I only call it greed. Cross my heart and hope to die, ready to feed! He’d be dead to me then, as I am to you now.
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One arts plaza Helena Hind
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Idiosyncratic Alice Susanna McCaskill Beggars can’t be choosers, so I guess I have no choice As I walk with chains a-dragging and I speak with muted voice They tell us to bite bullets, but the taste of lead is sharp As I accidently swallow, and it travels to my heart Better late than never, so I guess I better come As the tears do glisten slowly in the ever-setting sun And I speak in common phrases so you will not figure out That I am not quite so common, here the strange and odd one out So, I’ll speak of cutting corners that are harder than my skin And I’ll tell of missing boats and not forced drownings in my sins I’ll joke that my poor choices cost me here an arm and leg But keep hidden pushed up daisies from my tortured “resting” grave A stone it kills two birds but can also here murder man How much harder harsh words spoken for mere human beings to stand And these tortured words move slowly as I try to speed them on People down here don’t have time for those whose hearts are broke and drawn So I’ll use pulled wool as sleeping masks and put it on mine eyes How much harder to deceive oneself when you’ve made up the lies How are we to get the best of both when neither side is green How can we achieve true godliness when none of us is clean How to here insult an injury when everything is broke How to gum up given works without the wretched wrench or spoke And the legs I used to walk on here are broke from so-called luck Thanks for all the pretty words that I am saddled with and stuck
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Curls
Celia D. Bateman Growing my curls out was bravest thing I have ever done If I could pinpoint the thing in my life that I am most proud of It would be these strands of twists, turns, and coils Before I went natural I had never seen anyone with hair like mine Until I saw Angela Davis In all of her glory on the television screen Every February My pops would make us sit down together to watch the black history month programs on tv Angela Davis was always my favorite, my personal hero She was a Black Panther, and as tough as they come She had more grit than most and she was rocking the flyest fro I had ever seen She stated in an interview that she desired to fight European standards of beauty And I decided that I wanted to be like her Powerful, free, and naturally me You see my family made the executive decision to chemically relax me By the age of three Because my hair was too thick, too coarse, and broke far too many combs I spent years in the salon paying women $120 every two weeks to complain about my hair texture I spent years on my mama’s living room floor getting my ears and scalp burned by hot combs and flat irons Molding myself into what others wanted me to be But at the ripe old age of thirteen I told my mother I wanted to go natural She wished me luck She told me she couldn’t do nothing else for me She told me to figure it out on my own And it took some time But I did And I love what I found I stopped asking for permission to be beautiful I grasped this task with both hands Spent sleepless nights squeezing conditioner into my cuticles Twisting and braiding
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I traded sickly chemical smells for tropical ones like coconut, hibiscus, passion fruit, Honeysuckle, and shea butter I learned how to say “No, you cannot touch my hair” to people who did not appreciate its magnificence Like the old lady three pews behind me at church Or my family members who looked at it with disgust Or the white women who attempted to pet me in the checkout line at Walmart You see, going natural has been one hell of a journey Every day my hair teaches me more than I ever thought I could know It taught me that it was all right that I don’t have any direction yet Because at the end of the day I’d still be left with a cool style It taught me that it was cool to stick out and to stick up for myself Because I would be respected for it It taught me that it’s ok to break and to heal and to grow Because before this life is over you will go through some things It taught me to cut off the ends that were doing more harm than good It taught me how to be defiant And to be strong And to stick out in crowds It taught me that I was never too much I was, in fact, just enough It taught me some patience And how to be gentle It taught me how to love It showed me myself In my most raw and natural form And I will always be eternally grateful For this thick mass of curls
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A Standard Trouble Christian Newkirk 50
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How do you feel now? Mia Pons
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Dear Mr. Hughes Where do I go to find the blues? I have wandered the alleys And worshipped in clubs Looking for the jazz you left behind. Your jazz was born in the streets. My jazz was learned in a classroom And played in fancy concert halls. Your jazz choreographed smooth steps and new life. My jazz choreographs red eyes and dead fingers Stumbling on a metal tube. I chose the saxophone with dreams Of fingers dancing pearly keys And hailing the sunrise. I’m trying to find the right path Through the ink that was left on the page, My fingers bleeding broken dreams. Where are the notes That dance in the bells Of brass instruments? What is left behind when struggle Becomes legend?
T. Patrick Ortez
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Are you happy now? Mia Pons
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Someone Like Me Tiffanie Vo Every day I look in the mirror and I stare at my reflection. But, just this once, please spare me the Mulan reflection song reference. You know, Mushu the dragon isn’t going to come back from the spirit word with a gong in hand and guide me through the day. My ancestors aren’t watching me from above planning for my next heroic movie scene. Sheng isn’t going to come riding on his white stallion (with his shirt off) fending for my place in the army. Why? Because I am still trapped in the same place, I was yesterday…and the day before…and the years before…and the generations before I was even born into this place. Because there is no place for someone like me. I am bounded by my culture. I am chained by the normalized perceptions of how I am supposed to be. Yes, I admit it. I enjoy the stories and the movies like every other person. I get overly excited when I see a character on the big screen that looks like me. Even if the actress plays a concubine or a damsel in distress in the next Bruce Lee movie. I still pay attention because representation is limited for someone like me. Even my own “people” or those who sup-
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posedly share the same experiences and look like me are the ones who are saying to be quiet. Be white passing. Surviving in this world means leaving your attitude behind you, softening your thoughts, and lowering your voice so you can easily slip by without being noticed. If being white passing means surviving, then why am I still barely breathing? Because being a young Asian American woman means, there is no place for someone like me in this racial hierarchy. Living in a world filled with different faces, I am lost within the misplaced voices. And I cry. I scream. I beat my chest. Begging for someone to hear me…to see me…to believe in me. I won’t stop until someone can finally see what I see when I look at OUR reflection. I’m back in my room still staring at my myself. Off into the distance from the other room, I hear music with the song lyrics, “When will my reflection show who I am inside?” Hmmm…maybe Mulan was onto something.
Angered Calm
Christian Newkirk
Nostalgia Emily Tucker
When we were six years old, we climbed the tree in our neighborhood park. It was a club pact, we, named after yellow squash, Found our footholds in ruts of cracked bark And shared secrets. The green flooded our childhood with warmth, those Lazy summer days partitioned by hours and minutes and Seconds, every second tasting and chewing and swallowing Like the summertime caterpillars gnawing at our shirtsleeves And every leaf was memorized. We stretched our limbs to stardust, The branches heaving gracefully, as our little feet Grazed against its elephant skin Aged with the stories of the others come before usBut we were the most important to our tree, The scratches of then-gleaming, now-rusty house keys engraved Our memories into its warm tolerance. Its roots were our roots, Its springtime flowers blooming for us alone. The weathered old perch that fit us Like gardening gloves Was as free of parasites as we were. Supporting our little bodies with protecting arms, It cradled us in a mother’s gaze, and We never fell from its gentle hold. But those summer days died with the locusts’ chirps, The winter suffocating its poor, dying arms, and Your leaves that once intertwined with mine were Faded, disintegrated, and did not return when spring brought the tempest That cremated our tree’s elderly skin forevermore, That charred perch, ashes, that stretched every mile Of our separation. And Time went on, with our tree, Nothing more than a stump, Raising flowers, in New life, just not the one with whom I shared fences and tree perches and Melting summer days. 56
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Bike Dream Jacob Mattke
A blur of green and brown I swim through the springtime air Sunlight beats down on my brow as I approach, gasping hill upon hill A flash of angry red, two lungs filled with Autumn-laden air Black tires skid; I brake, but still I’ve snow in my hair
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A field in which to rest Rachel Beer
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Shapeshifter T. Patrick Ortez
South of cold South of time I think I see my mirror healing I think I see our mothers smile I think I see you Dancing in the questing sand South of cold South of walls Broken people Broken things Broken Fixed Broke again South of North of history We struggle South of cold South of time The wise man sprouts wings and talons And sharp eyes that see unobstructed To the hazy line Where desert and sky make love South of cold South of walls You, grandmother Five hundred years In faded purple Red skin invisible Can you see like the old bird wise man? Can you see me? North of time North of walls Sprouting gestures and dialect Of camouflage Burrowing In guilty comfort Crying
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Water to the Stone Mia Pons
Falling Up & Falling Down
Mia Pons
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Unheard. M. Muneeb Ata
As I walk through campus, my melanin alienates me. A sea of whiteness flows in every
direction, from students to professors, walls to buildings, statues to names. I am reminded of my foreignness. On my commute to class, I pass the Chemistry Annex, a white building with the name of a prominent KKK leader etched on its entrance, and arrive at my lecture. I sit in the middle of the room and start a conversation with a neighboring student. He asks me to repeat my name. I happily comply and space out the phonetics. We converse politely until he finally asks the question we have been dancing around: “So where are you from?” “Tulsa,” I proudly respond, “What about you?” “Sorry, I meant where did you grow up?” he clarifies. “Oh, I was raised in Alabama.” His forehead wrinkles and his lips purse. He pauses in confusion. We both know that answer was not satisfactory and so he persists, “What’s your ethnicity?” I answer: “I was born in Pakistan,” and the professor begins class. To be a minority in America is to be reminded of your lack of belonging in your home, so this interaction is quite common. People of color struggle to be seen as more than just our racial identity, often being referred to as the “black/brown/Asian/etc.” person instead of by our own names. Minorities at predominately white institutions accept that despite their best efforts, they will not fully belong in the university’s culture. We have this feeling of alienation because of the treatment we receive by our peers. In my time at the University of Oklahoma, I have been called a “terrorist” while sitting in lecture. When applying for a campus award, I was told that I am privileged because my minority status would give me the edge over white applicants. As a resident advisor, I have had to debate a white resident because he believed the use of black/brown face was not offensive and wanted it to be a part of his Halloween costume. In group discussions, white students argued that my “people” were better off subjugated by imperialism. When recounting my experiences of racism, listeners dismissed my claims by suggesting my treatment was only happenstance. Finally, even as a non-black student at OU, I have been called the n-word. Those who were shocked by the recent blackface video are living in an ignorant bliss that people of color on this campus do not have the luxury of. Although well-documented bigotry is rare, racist acts on campus are not only common but a part of the culture. The same students carelessly throwing around the n-word on Friday will be cheering for black football players Saturday. The administration must make large leaps to shifting the campus culture, including: updating the Student Code of Conduct to facilitate a no-tolerance approach to racism, creating a mandatory four-year diversity enrichment experience, encouraging multicultur-
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al exposure by allowing students to substitute general-education requirements with courses in AFAM/IAS departments, and diversifying campus by hiring qualified people of color. Although the administration is a great player in shifting the narrative on campus, it is the students who ultimately hold the power to do so. To end racist behavior on campus, uncomfortable conversations must arise among houses in Greek life, campus organizations, and friend groups. The fight against systemic racism cannot be shifted to just punishing racist behavior or else that evil mindset will still silently linger among us. With the administration committed to leading diversity education initiatives and students dedicated to creating an inclusive learning environment, the future of our university could be far brighter than its past. The University of Oklahoma now has an opportunity to lead the rest of the nation in combating the prevalent systemic racism that exists in almost every institution. It is now time to be bold in the face of national scrutiny and declare our war against the agents of vast carelessness that would allow incidents such as these to be swept under the rug. There will be obstacles, there will be friction, but the knowledge that this fight is worth any inflicted injuries should carry us forward. Let us listen to the voices that have been left unheard so that they may finally lead the way. *** Months after these events, I still feel the ramifications. Multiple racist events plague our campus and city, including group-chats targeting minorities and hate speech spray painted in local parks. Yet, our community persists in the fight for equality, acceptance, and diversity enrichment. Between the scared glances and hopeful speeches exist moments where we fall back into a harmonious rhythm. I lay back on a wooden bench facing the South Oval with a chocolate-chip muffin in hand and a class-assigned novel resting in my lap. I breathe in the spring air. The tree to my right, in full lavender bloom, releases its pollen over an unsuspecting crowd. I see a large group of brown and black children, no older than sixteen, being shown around campus by a student in a red shirt. He smiles and waves toward me. I politely nod back. The bells adjacent to my bench thunderously toll, and the tour guide rushes his diverse group toward their next stop. I can’t help but smile and silently hope that when they step foot on this campus as students, they will feel heard.
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don’t move honey Hannah Wyatt
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Ephemerality Hannah Frome This isn’t the kind of relationship I can write poetry about This is you coming home at the end of a long day and me just being here to ask you how you are and to give you a kiss This is you holding me when I’m anxious and stroking my back and my hair and letting your shoulder fall asleep under my head This is me forgetting to put the trash out and you forgiving me and not saying a word And me waiting all day to tuck you in again “I love you” and “I love you” and “I love you, too” This isn’t flowers and wine, chocolate and picnics This isn’t you unbuttoning my shirt with your teeth This isn’t days that become weeks that become months where we never fight and we never cry This isn’t us both wanting the same things and walking hand in hand the same direction And forever on the horizon, inevitable, and growing slowly larger “I’ll never leave you” and “five year plan” and “when we are old” This isn’t a romance I’ve seen before, not star crossed lovers or tragedies that no one saw coming This is a year lease on 1200 square feet, with a roommate and your cat and mine This is right now we are side by side and holding hands tightly, the way you insist upon, so everyone who sees us knows we are in love This is what we are promised is nothing, but darling that is enough “I love you” and “I love you” and “I love you, too”
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currents
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Lupita Gonzalez
road trip Madison Jarboe
as the hills turn to mountains and the flowers turn to trees outside a window of ever-changing scenery, and the rays of a brilliant sunset crown the heads of the ones you love with golden halos you must close your eyes for a moment and pray for (just a second) more of these glorious times, this simplicity, these people— this montage of youth, underscored by laughter and whatever’s on the radio— this long two-lane highway that has yet to diverge (though it one day will— but that’s too far ahead to consider for the time being)— these times you’ll long for long after the road has split into two (or three or four) and, perhaps one day, you’ll find your way back to them or perhaps not but for now, it is enough just to be and to allow the world’s colors to blur— the only indication that even the most timeless of moments must surrender to its passage
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Your nose to limit narrows Andrew Carr
Your nose to limit narrows as milk swims in its glass (As easy, weightless things walk barefoot in the grass). That is the way I carry, carry little bags: The presents from my Mama, the luggage Grandpa drags. I’ve held them quiet under my dull and steel blue eyes Since servicing clouds have swept the Oklahoma skies.
Cosmic
Alyx Butt
And when my heavy head bends down to play his part, I sigh out through my teeth, belie my little heart. “Oh! Dear God, and oh! Great Empty, do not deal me words. I cannot fit them pretty, nor sing them with the birds.” Then the silent asters, the vased flowers, sweetly answer, “There’s speech outside of voice and language inside laughter.” So, I will sit and smile while your nose to limit narrows (As simple, patient people wait and watch the sparrows).
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Can We Start Over? Page 1
Katie Murray 70
The Aster Review
A very special thanks to the OU Student Government Association, the College of Arts and Sciences, and the office of
Provost Kyle Harper for their confidence, funding, and support, without which we could not have brought our vision to life.
Thanks
Special
Our additional and unending gratitude goes out to the editors of World Literature Today for their constant support, invaluable guidance, and limitless enthusiasm.
To the writers, artists, editors, and readers who have made The Aster Review beautiful since the beginning, and to all those who we’ve still to meet in the years to come.
Volume III
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