Esprit - Spring 2017 by The University of Scranton

Esprit Spring 2017

ESPRIT The University of Scranton Review of Arts and Letters Spring 2017 Editor-in-Chief Lizzy Polishan Production Manager Alex Wasalinko Assistant Production Managers Scott Curran, Joseph Delmar, Kathleen Heslin, Sarah Iannucci, Summer Vaughan, Erica Westlake, Brandon Zaffuto Editors Dan Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Reilly Megan Bershefsky Brina Platt Miranda Capezzuto Scott Curran Angela Raieski Cara Charles Peter Shaver Joseph Delmar Summer Vaughan Anna DiGiovine Dillon Vita Kathleen Heslin Yunghsin Wang / Kristine Christa Howarth Alex Wasalinko Sarah Iannucci Erica Westlake Stefan Olsen Sara Wierbowski Brandon Zaffuto Check-In Melissa Eckenrode Faculty Moderator Stephen Whittaker

Esprit, a co-curricular activity of the English department, is published twice yearly by the students of The University of Scranton. The content is the responsibility of the editors and does not necessarily reflect the views of the administration or faculty. The University subscribes to the principle of responsible freedom of expression for its student editors. Copyright by The University of Scranton, Scranton, PA 18510.

Spring 2017 Awards: The Berrier Poetry Award Lizzy Polishan “A Tale Told by an Idiot” The Berrier Prose Award Summer Vaughan “Baby” The Esprit Graphics Award Scott Curran “Renaissance Man”

Spring 2017 Award Judges: Poetry: Lindsey Pelucacci graduated from The University of Scranton in 2015 with majors in English, philosophy, and theology/religious studies and as a member of the Special Jesuit Liberal Arts program. While at Scranton, she served on Esprit’s editorial board. She currently pursues an MA in English at Fordham University. Prose: Olivia Gillespie was the editor-in-chief of Esprit magazine during the 2015-2016 academic year. She graduated from the University of Scranton in May 2016 with a bachelor’s degree in English literature and minors in theology/religious studies and Spanish. She currently lives in Brazil, where she works as a Fulbright English teaching assistant at the Universidad Federal de Viçosa in Minas Gerais state. Graphics: Darlene Miller-Lanning, Ph.D., teaches, and is the Director of the Hope Horn Gallery, at The University of Scranton. Her BFA from Wilkes University and her MFA from Marywood are both in painting. Her Doctorate from Binghamton University is in art history. She is co-author of several books on American and local art history. Her article “Female in Nature: Diptychs by Berenice D’Vorzon” appeared recently in Bridges: A Jewish Feminist Journal.

Contents Ice Droplets on a BedroomWindow in January

Brina Platt

Beijing Street

St. John Whittaker

Human

Yunghsin Wang / Kristine 8

Internal

Sarah Iannucci

Mars and the Moon

Cara Charles

A Tale Told by an Idiot

Lizzy Polishan

Renaissance Man

Scott Curran

Grass

Laura Manrique

Almost Like Falling in Love

Yunghsin Wang / Kristine 20

AfterYou

Alex Wasalinko

Vigil for 2

Scott Curran

Dacha

Lizzy Polishan

Nkokonjeru

Dan O’Reilly

Fog Descends Platteklip

Christa Howarth

forming streams

Peter Shaver

The Creation of Dreams

Brina Platt

Love: A Study of Diotima’s Speech and Trinity College’s Bust of Socrates

Alex Wasalinko

Earl Grey

Kathleen Heslin

2:00 am

Katelyn Moore

Hannibal in Shadow

Megan Bershefsky

Contents Paige

Angela Raieski

Pairs

Lizzy Polishan

Passing

Sarah Iannucci

Something

Peter Shaver

Baby

Summer Vaughan

Untitled

Sarah Iannucci

3-legged dog

Peter Shaver

City Hall

Erica Westlake Jenny Whittaker Alex Wasalinko & Brandon Zaffuto

Outside Cover Staff Photo Outside Cover Design

Ice Droplets on a Bedroom Window in January Brina Platt

A galaxy comes alive on my window pane. Thousands of ice droplets housing light, A universe unseen to the city. Two planets: one apricot, the other starkly albino. â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Porchlights. Transfixed, time Rewinds. Shards of glass sprinkled upon November pavement. Fragmented reflection. Blue & red Or red & blue. Sirens wail. Headlights: one dim, the other blindingly bright.

Beijing Street St. JohnWhittaker 7

Human YunghsinWang / Kristine I was in a different city when my grandfather ended up in the hospital. I didn’t know how to respond when my mom told me over the phone. I’m sorry sounded rote, and I was in no position to say, He’ll be okay. My mom’s a doctor and she knew better. Her father hadn’t been okay for a long time. Dementia, diabetes, now organ failure. His life had been riddled with pain and illnesses the past few years. It was only a matter of time, but I couldn’t possibly say that, could I? That weekend I went back to my hometown to visit my grandfather with my mom. The smell of disinfectant in the hospital was a familiar one. I used to visit my mom at work when I was little, and the smell had never meant anything other than family. I was vaguely aware of the fact that people here were in pain, and some of them would never walk out again, but it was a distant fact. It wasn’t until I was at my grandfather’s bedside that I truly felt the weight of death in the air. This was where people fought for their lives. I hadn’t been close to my grandfather for years, and I struggled to remember if he’d always looked so weak. His eyes were unfocused, discolored. His wrinkled skin hung loosely on his bones and his veins were so visible it seemed like they would burst any second. There was dried pus under his toenails, thick and the color a sickening yellow. The air smelled old, rotten, dying. He was constantly gasping for air. And when he coughed, it seemed like he would break his own spine with the force of it. I didn’t know how to feel. My mom looked calm and aloof in her white coat, and this old man might as well have been just another patient. I racked my mind trying to stir up some memories, any memory that’d give me answers, that’d make me feel, but I came up empty. I remembered the picture of my grandfather and me leaning against each other on the sofa that had been sold years ago. I remembered the pure, spontaneous smile I could no longer muster for a camera, but I didn’t remember taking the

photo. I didn’t remember caring for the man with greying hair and perpetually paint-stained fingers. I said nothing and looked down at the floor, pretending that I was sad, that I felt anything at all. Lying by omission, that was what I always did. I kept silent and let my mom project her emotions on me. It’s easier, I reasoned. It’s better for both of us. When my mom led me out of the hospital, her arm tight around mine, she started talking about my grandfather’s upcoming surgery. The words all blurred together after a while. I didn’t think she’d care. She only wanted me to feel worried like she did, but this simple task was beyond me. I did the only thing I could do; I listened. *** I edited my first video when I was in high school. It was a short film for my computer science class. My group decided to make a parody trailer for Charlotte’sWeb. I can’t remember exactly what happened in the trailer. Fern was in love with Wilbur, I think, and Wilbur died. There was a lesbian couple somewhere. We shot the footage in one day, and I spent two days editing. It was terrible. I didn’t know what I was doing. The scenes ran too long and the shots lingered in odd places. The rhythm was all off. That’s what got me into editing, though, or vidding, as some parts of the Internet put it. I started using movies and TV shows as my materials. Stringing unrelated shots together to create new meanings, finding common narratives in different stories—it’s like writing, but with images and sounds instead of words. I love the independence it gives me. People laugh and cry and live on my screen while I remain invisible, untouchable. What I love more, however, is the intimacy. You notice the smallest things while editing. Every minute change in expression. Every pause in between speech.You come to know these people better than their friends, their family, their lovers. The tip of his nose moves when he talks. She pouts when she’s trying to concentrate. He has a beauty mark on his left temple. There’s a faint scar on the inside of her elbow. Strangers become acquaintances and become something more. Then you either come to hate the faces you’ve been staring at throughout sleepless nights, or you fall in love with them.

I’ve never felt more alone than when I’m editing, but I’ve also never felt more connected to life. Breathing, blinking, muscles tensing and relaxing, the way someone’s body responds to another person—things I’ve never noticed in real life, I notice them on screen. I see attraction. I see love. I see pain. There are meanings in details. And in creating a narrative with these details, my dormant empathy finally finds something to latch onto. I understand. *** My grandfather passed away in my absence. I was at school in another city. I didn’t offer to go home early, and my mom didn’t ask. I remember thinking, Oh, that’s quick. My grandfather’s death wasn’t a surprise, and yet it felt sudden. One moment he was in the hospital waiting for surgery. The next he was gone. I wondered if my mom had witnessed his last breath. Had she tried to make his heart beat a moment longer? I didn’t dare to ask. When I got home that weekend, everything seemed unchanged. My grandfather hadn’t been living with us, so his things were never in the house. There was no hole caused by his departure. My leaving for school made a bigger dent than his death, and it felt wrong. How could the loss of a man’s life be so insignificant? Was his connection to the world so weak? Or was it me? Was I the only one who couldn’t feel the wound he inflicted? A few weeks later my uncle came from the U.S. to attend the funeral. He was my mom’s younger brother, and he left home to pursue an artist’s life when he was barely twenty. His presence was what made my grandfather’s death real for me. He felt wrong in the house—a fish out of water. Discomfort radiated from him, and in that moment I related to him more than I’d ever related to anyone. He was obligated to feel sad, but he didn’t care, not really, not as much as he should have. We were strangers in the skin of a family. We kept quiet and stared at nothing, letting people think we were feeling something. My dad was angry with my uncle for not being there for my mom. He should have helped with the funeral, my dad said. He should have helped take care of their father in the first place. What good would it do, I wondered, if

he had been physically present but mentally absent? I was here more as a formality than anything, like he was. Two of these things were not like the others. There was a limit to what our omission could do. Leaving our canvases blank for people to assume we cared was one thing. Actively pretending we cared was another. And wasn’t it ironic? We were both my grandfather’s favorite. My grandfather was a painter and he loved an artistic soul when he saw one. A few years back he used to ask me to show him my drawings. They were mostly sketches of inanimate objects—plants, fruit, dolls, and furniture. I had never been good with living things. He smiled when he saw my works and said I could be an artist like him one day. I gave him an awkward smile back and a stilted thank you. I should have cared more about his opinions, should have felt elated, but I didn’t know how. There was a veil between us; his voice couldn’t reach me, and my eyes couldn’t see him. But then, my mom asked me to write a short biography of my grandfather and organize all the scanned files of his paintings. Forty thousand dollars for one piece; I was first shocked by the value of his works. We had his paintings at home, and they had always been there. I never gave them another glance. I always knew he was an artist, but somehow it never registered in my mind that he was an artist to other people, that he had once lived and left a mark in the world. He was a real person, it suddenly hit me. There were people who admired him. There were people who loved him. He wasn’t a figment of my memory or a ghost at my home. He was real, and he died. *** I once tried to do a filmography of the year. It took me a whole night just to download all the trailers for every movie released in 2013. There were more than two hundred of them; each was about two to three minutes long. It took me ten hours just to watch every trailer, and more to organize the clips. I started this impromptu project in September. December came and still I wasn’t even close to finishing. So I gave myself another goal: make a video for New Year’s without trying to fit every trailer into it.

By then I was fairly familiar with the materials available to me, and I managed to finish the video in one night. I spent most of my time picking the song. I settled on Jonsi’s Lilikoi Boy after going through my playlist for more than an hour. I listened through the song once, cut out the parts I didn’t need, then started editing. For once I didn’t try to match the visual to the lyrics. Instead I focused on the flow and the tone of the music. It’s about hope, I decided, and one after another the clips just came together. I was so caught up in the momentum I never once stopped to think where the video should go. It was the one time I’ve ever been spontaneous. It’s as if the shape of every piece had already been figured out, and I was only matching edges. I knew what I was feeling and I knew exactly how to express that feeling. Not even words came to me that easily. I was elated when I finished editing the video. An odd adrenaline rush. I found myself matching Alexander Skarsgård’s smile. I felt my legs twitching when Liam James and his friends leapt off a cliff into the water below. My heart sped up as Ben Stiller skateboarded down the hill. My chest felt full when Ashton Kutcher narrated about misfits and rebels changing the world. It was like my soul was for once as big as my body. I didn’t just understand these people on my screen. I could feel what they were feeling. My body reacted the way it rarely did in real life. I felt human. *** Blue painter, that’s what the world calls my grandfather. Almost all his paintings are in blue with only a hint of other colors. An article I found calls it an obsession. All my grandfather’s clothes were dark blue. Whether it was personal preference or out of practicality I don’t know, but for as long as I remember, blue was always his color. All his works were painted with oil-based paint, I realized while I was going through the files. That was how he had always smelled before the smell of sickness clung to him. Art had been an integral part of his life until he no longer had enough life in him to make art. I don’t feel like I know him, but I know about him. There are all these artworks of his I’ve never seen, but many of them I can recognize in a

heartbeat. It was how I learned the smell of paint before I came in contact with any. It was how people said blue painter and I instinctively knew it was him. It was how I knew to find the signature he hid in his paintings. All these pieces have been in my head for years. I just never put them together. I do know him, and however faint my emotions are, I do mourn him. Not necessarily as a grandfather, but as a person who had been in my life, and became a part, however small, of who I am today. This, perhaps, is the least and the most I can do. If I can’t feel, I can watch and listen. If I can’t love, I can notice and understand. Maybe I can find order in chaos, a throughline in random facts. Maybe I can start with learning about a person. Maybe I’ll come to know and care about them. Maybe one day I’ll be able to feel a death in my bones and ache for the loss. Maybe one day I can simply feel.

Internal Sarah Iannucci 14

Mars and the Moon Cara Charles

wait didnt we land on mars? like buzz lightyear and onesmallstep? No, babe, we landed on the moon – Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong landed on the moon. right aldren right duh i knew that but i always thought arent mars and the moon the same thing? That night, we were In tangled sheets and quick fire, your red hair touched by moonlight. You burned yourself into me. I saw stars. But the healing is in the baby steps. i can never remember whats the difference between fiction and nonfiction? isnt fiction facts? You dated an English major for a year, how do you not know this? just answer the question When I told my counselor that you told me I was making it all up, that you never hurt me, never, She told me you were gaslighting me, that you were still abusing me, that that did happen. Nonfiction, and it tasted bitter to call you my abusive, angry ex-girlfriend. The text you sent read: I hope you are happier than you’ve ever been before. I am so happy for you and proud of everything you’ve done. The moon kissed her and me Maybe more gently but surely less lovingly Than I kissed her, who loves space and literature and me, and me, and me.

A Tale Told by an Idiot Lizzy Polishan

I threw up red because the wine, and you drop daffodils in the toilet bowl so you won’t have to sleep on the tartan couch.Your wife’s bruised sedan won’t crackle up the driveway until a few hours pass, so outside the beagle pants between us, and the river’s fireworks spit on our flat wet rock. I want to ask you to braid my hair, tell me about Faulkner, but you’re drawing hieroglyphics in dirt with your shoe, telling me about her right high heel’s falling off, her cheek’s pressing to the plastic on the tartan. Last night. The Sharpied x on the back of her hand, the right one, overturned: a boat on the bay-stained floor. And I think you’ll press your saliva on my tongue, like water curving over rocks, but headlights’ streams strike the water, and you shake drops from your legs’ dark wool, and my eyes and the beagle trail you inside.

Renaissance Man Scott Curran

Grass Laura Manrique

I wish I could tell you my love for you is some pretty metaphor like roses or Christmas presents. Like my new clothes or an unexpected call on my telephone but my love for you is like fucking grass. pretty…sometimes when it’s as abundant as the stars but it’s yellowed and thinned out like a balding old man– I used to love you like the mountains in Austria yet you lawn-mowed my love like the gardener you never wanted to be thinning out my devotion and drying the perennial down to its roots yet when I see you and my brain inverts the image my mind floods with you and you soak the roots and fuck me up again as the baby grass sprouts more and more like a weed and fills my heart so I plant little seeds desperately–flowers and trees

hoping something takes root in my heart but the grass always grows tear it out still it goes and you steadily tear me apart

Almost Like Falling in Love YunghsinWang / Kristine Erica and I were classmates for only the first year of high school. She was about my height with dark straight hair like mine. We both wore glasses. We both looked like the quiet and nerdy one. I didn’t pay much attention to her the first time we introduced ourselves in class. The only reason I remembered her at all was her name: Jing-Jing. The character Jing, which means shiny, is composed of three ri, which means sun. She has six suns in her name and that made me smile. The last character of my name has three golds in it. Our names were both more memorable than ourselves at first glance. I was about as responsive as a brick wall the first few weeks at school. She turned out to be much better with people than I was. I almost never left my seat during breaks, and I was always the first to leave when class ended. She was usually surrounded by people and she was always talking to her friends when I walked out of the classroom. No one would expect me to be the one to initiate conversation with her. I never initiated conversation with people. But I did with her. The first time we talked it took me a whole hour to muster the courage. She was talking to two of her friends and I heard her mention the names Takami and Sakuraba. I couldn’t help shifting my attention to them. I could feel my heart pounding and I wanted nothing more than to join in the conversation. Her friends didn’t read the manga. I did. I had the whole series hidden behind a stack of clothes in my closet. I knew exactly where the line she quoted came from. I was worried she’d think I was weird, or she’d get annoyed at me for listening in on their conversation. I couldn’t make up my mind and for the whole ten minutes I stayed in my seat fidgeting with my pen. When the next class started I was only half listening to the teacher. I wanted to talk to her. I wanted to be her friend. I started planning what I should say in my head.

When it was break time again I walked up to her and told her I read Eyeshield 21 too. She didn’t think I was a weirdo. She didn’t get mad at me for listening in. We talked. We talked during every break after that. We talked more after school and we walked home together. I never imagined it could be so easy to become friends with anyone. Erica and I ripped bad movies apart for fun and gushed over brilliant directors. We exchanged writings and complained about how purple the essays we were forced to read in class were. We spent almost every break talking to each other. We left school together every day and I’d go out of my way to walk her to her cram school just so our conversation could last a little longer. The routine continued even after we went into different classes in sophomore year. I’d go to her classroom before class started and after school ended. I thought she’d always be the one I thought of when I discovered a great TV show. I thought we’d always be able to talk for hours and hours without running out of things to talk about. I thought we were perfect together. I thought we would be forever. *** I met Viktoria in graduate school. She’s half a head taller than I am with blond hair and blue eyes. It was impossible not to notice her during the orientation. I’m from Sweden, she said in Mandarin with only a little accent, and immediately she became the coolest person in the room. Everyone wanted to get to know her. Everyone was caught by her foreignness. I was no exception. I wanted to be her friend the same way straight girls want a gay best friend. It was more about the idea than about the person. She would have hated it had she known. We didn’t talk much that day. I’m a lot better at talking than I had been, but I’m still far from sociable. I wasn’t too worried, though. I had only nine classmates. We shared all our classes. It’d be impossible not to know one another. There’s a Swedish girl in my class, I told my sister when I got home. Viktoria with a k. And that was it. That was all I knew about her. A name and a country. It wasn’t until the first day of classes that I really got to know her.

We and five of our classmates were having lunch together. It started like an awkward group date. All the standard questions about your hometown, your college, your major. It was the smallest of small talk and it was all I could do not to answer every question with only a word. It got better after a while. There were at least three conversations going on at the same time. I was talking to another girl when I heard Viktoria say she played a lot of video games. “Like what?” I couldn’t help shifting my attention to her. “Like Dragon Age,” she said, and I practically leapt into their conversation, abandoning the girl I’d been talking to. “Me too!” It was weird hearing my own voice rising half an octave. I would have screamed if I were the kind of person who screamed. We talked about our favorite characters. We talked about the choices we made in games. It’s funny how quickly mutual love of a fictional world can bring two people together. She was suddenly more familiar to me than anyone else. It suddenly seemed impossible that I’d thought she could ever be foreign to me. It’s ridiculous how much I looked forward to talking to her again. The next day couldn’t come sooner. “She loves the games I love,” I told my sister. She didn’t get what was so significant about that, but she could see how excited I was. “What’s her name again?” Viktoria with a k, from Sweden. She loves Dragon Age and gets as attached to fictional characters as I do. She romanced an elven assassin in the first game, an elven warrior in the second, and an elven mage in the third; I’m starting to wonder if she has a thing for pointy ears. She went through a Titanic phase when she was little and can tell you all about it. She loves tabletop roleplaying games and used to play with her friends for nine hours straight. It felt all too natural for us to become friends. We complained about tropes we hated and shared ridiculous videos we’d seen. We talked about writing and how badly written some of our translation assignments were. We spent most of our time in school together. We had lunch together and walked home together. Sometimes I’d change my plans just so I could have the twenty minutes of commute time I shared with her. She’s the one I tell when I discover a great podcast. We can talk for hours and hours or simply work on our own things together. I can be myself around her. I feel at home around her.

It’s high school all over again, and I’m terrified that it will end the same way. *** Erica and I didn’t break. We simply drifted apart. There wasn’t a moment I could identify as the day we stopped being friends. It snuck up on me, and I was as surprised as anyone. We made plans to meet up in a coffee shop. I was even a little excited to see her. Once we met up, though, our conversation dried out in less than ten minutes. Was it me? I wondered. She complained about her classmates not being motivated in school and I didn’t know what to say. “Why are they even in medical school in the first place?” she asked. I was as guilty as her classmates. I didn’t know why I was studying law and I felt no motivation to work hard. Was it her? She made a joke about her friend molesting her imaginary cousin, and all I felt was disgust. We didn’t change that much, but we changed enough and saw each other too little that we no longer fit together; we couldn’t get each other the way we had been able to. We were soulmates, we said, trying to reassure ourselves we hadn’t lost each other. We said the first year of high school was our happiest time. We made plans about going abroad together. We pretended we would be forever “You’re the only one who understands that sometimes I just need to be alone,” she said. “Sometimes I’m just too tired to even talk. Not even my family gets that.” “Yeah.” I managed a smile. “Same.” I knew that not because I knew her, but because I knew myself. And it wasn’t because I was tired that I needed to be alone; sometimes I just did. We used to think it was only us. We used to see the world as our enemy and it was us against them, but I’ve changed. I had grown out of my cynicism and I was getting tired of how cynical everyone I knew was becoming. I had lost most of my thorns, and hers couldn’t find purchase on me. “Let’s do this again soon,” she said. She was taking the subway and

I was going to walk home. I didn’t offer to walk her to the station. “Sure.” I cleared my throat. “See you.” There was a moment of stillness, of silence. Then she reached out for a hug. We didn’t do that. We didn’t do hugs or even lean against each other. We didn’t touch. None of my touches were casual and I always had to make a conscious decision. I had never made the decision to close the distance when our minds had been so close. But now it was different. This felt like a desperate attempt to recover our closeness. I hugged her and patted her on the back. The hug ended almost as soon as it started. Our contact became sporadic after that. A few messages every week became every month, then eventually every few months. We texted each other happy birthdays and happy new years, but our words were empty, a pale imitation of our past selves. Love, House I’ve taken to ending my texts this way. I imagined that’s what estranged couples do. Declaring love to each other when there is no love to be found. Stubbornly using her nickname for me even though she was the only one who called me that. Or maybe it’s precisely because she was the only one. It would have been easier had we been in a relationship. “We still love each other,” people say. “We just aren’t in love with each other anymore.” How do you explain it when you have only ever been friends? I don’t have the vocabulary for how I feel about her. I miss what we had, but as much as I try, I don’t miss her anymore. *** Viktoria and I hugged the last time we saw each other in person. She was leaving for Sweden and I would be in the U.S. when she went back to Taiwan. It seemed like the most natural thing to do. She threw her arms around me and I leaned my head against hers. I could feel her hair against my cheek. Neither of us cried. It didn’t feel like a goodbye different from any other. I panicked a little when I got home. Shouldn’t it feel different? We won’t be seeing each other for a year. Many things could happen in a year. Erica and I drifted apart in a year.

Once I talked to Viktoria about keeping in touch with your friends. She said she had friends she hadn’t talked to for years, and that was fine. When they met again it was just like old times. That was how I had hoped Erica and I would be. That is how I am with some of my friends. Would Erica and I have stayed together if we had met when we were older? Would we be able to hang out every once in a while without feeling awkward if we hadn’t been so close? “I don’t know if she’d be able to stay in Taiwan,” I told my sister. “If she can’t, I’ll be really–” I didn’t know how to describe how I thought I’d feel. Sad? Disappointed? Heartbroken? Whatever my feeling would be, the worst thing is it wouldn’t last. I’d get used to not having her around. I’d message her less and less. I’d think of her from time to time and feel the dull pain of loss, but I’d be too scared to contact her. I’d stop missing her. She’d be another person I failed to hold onto. I should have no reason to worry. Viktoria and I talk all the time even though now I’m in the U.S. and she’s in Taiwan. We talk more than my parents and I do. She still shares ridiculous videos with me and I still go to her when a character breaks my heart. We talk about what’s been happening in the world. We talk about what’s been happening in our lives. Nothing’s changed. It doesn’t feel like it’ll ever change. But I can’t help the shadow of doubt in my mind. Erica and I were best friends for four years. I met Viktoria a year ago. I wonder if this is the honeymoon phase. I wonder if it’s impossible for me to stay this close to someone for more than four years. When people talk about love they often talk about an expiration date. Seven year itch. People grow bored. Their relationship loses the spark. For some people it’s two years. For some others it’s even shorter. “We fall out of love,” they say, “but we’re still good friends.” What happens then, if it is friendship that loses the spark? What does that make Erica and I? Acquaintances? How can we be that if we know everything about each other’s past? Friends? It’s too much of a stretch when we can’t even hold a normal conversation. All the symptoms point to what people call a breakup. We aren’t ex-girlfriends, but we are ex-something. It’s almost like falling in love. Only I won’t be able to say, “We work better as friends,” and pretend we haven’t lost each other.

After You Alex Wasalinko

You left the sheets I now keep as ghosts. Cut out eyes, let the television give them a voice; they watch. I pack away the carpet, ignore the dust falling from below that litters the exposed stone. I’ve been walking barefoot, inspecting the debris that collects on my instep: sparkling particles mixed with shed cells; your microscopic traces pool on your side of my mattress next to the painting you bought from the vendor outside the Guggenheim, You smiled, inspected the brushstrokes, “She looks like you.” now enframed, hidden behind glass. Together, she and I peer towards the door beyond a frame of grimy neglect. Waiting. Forgetting.

Vigil for 2 Scott Curran

Dacha Lizzy Polishan Dacha: in the night, Daedalus dressed your roof with little labyrinths of snow, and in the dawn, their daisy-soft parapets bruise darkly, bleed shadows. This harvest-grape light, and—still—dark dangles— hang, waiver, sway: and I love this bright fog around you, snow-dabbed dacha, before his white wholeness begins to dissolve—and his cloudssongsbodiesgardens becomes snow notes ashes petals— and nothing’s left but to darn— daisies and days and seas and flesh and organs and flakes together—until you realize

you can never stitch a porcelain ocean from single flakes

no matter how many threads you use— and you drop the

loose ends— swaying, dangling—

and, in this darkness, adore the dance.

Nkokonjeru Dan O’Reilly

I march in, resolute to see a person, not decay. “Womb to tomb,” I recite over and over. Once wheeled into your corner, You slump down and chin up. Blaring above your habit reads: “We thank the Lord for the gift of your life.” No such gifts present in this sanctified graveyard. The pressure in my chest forces me across the room to you. Your onyx melts onto my alabaster. I beam. My blue eyes capture cloudy white. I flinch. Your eyes search for high heavens. Mine for the dust to which I shall return.

Fog Descends Platteklip Christa Howarth

forming streams Peter Shaver

birds are bending in february wind. blood runs wild despite cold rain. there’s no need to say anyone’s name. there’s breath in their lungs and hot swift blood as they’re thrown above. black burning things, their bodies massing and forming streams of dark matter in the grey. flowing and dissipating like rivers or veins.

The Creation of Dreams Brina Platt No one that lived in Fredonia, Arizona left. The people in Fredonia were the once-hopeful dreamers who didn’t make it in Kanab, Utah. Better known as “Little Hollywood,” Kanab was a large tourist location only about ten miles away, and was surrounded by the Zion Mountains whose rocks shimmered like an ocean in the heat of the day. Up close the gradient layers of the mountains looked like a red and orange rippling stream. Many of the adventurers—city dwellers—spent their time looking at the open sky and the shops filled with cheap shirts and arrowheads and not at the dead-eyed shopkeepers. “We couldn’t live off of each other’s tourist items,” my mother said once when I asked her why she moved to Fredonia. She and my father had met in Kanab at a local animal sanctuary, and ultimately moved to Fredonia when they were twenty-five. I didn’t ask her again if she had ever wanted to live elsewhere. People came to Kanab with dreams and ended up in Fredonia without any. My father owned a mechanic shop, a business that would be handed to my older brother, Riley, and me. The name of the shop was Second Chance Fuel. My father enjoyed helping the broken-down tourists as they traveled to Kanab. He liked to hear their stories, their aspirations. Riley did not share the same interest as my father. At seventeen, Riley was the rebel of the town. It was harmless, mostly. Such things like staying out past the town curfew of midnight, swiping a carton of cigarettes, not showing up for work at the shop. My parents hoped he would grow out of this mischievous phase. “I was a troublemaker too, and look at me now,” my father said over dinner one night. Riley’s chair across from me was empty. With her eyebrows knotted in worry, my mother stared down at her meatloaf. The weight of anxiety caused blue bags to sink below her eyes. She nodded lightly at my father, straightened her back, and lifted her dark brown eyes

to me. The conversation continued mundanely, although Riley’s absence was heavily noticeable. Out of everyone we knew Riley spent the most time with me, although I still felt a distance between us occasionally. He was the one who taught me how to play baseball and had started giving me tips about driving. I was only twelve years old, but Riley didn’t care. On the weekends, Riley would take me out in his rickety pickup truck, which bounced uncomfortably on the dusty roads. Rust had begun to taint the hood, the wipers didn’t work, and the tires had started to deflate from use. My dad gave him the vehicle a year ago saying, “You can only make it better.” Riley never made repairs to the truck, but it still chugged along. When Riley took me out, we sat and watched the Zion Mountains in the distance, waiting for the stars to emerge. We always went out at dusk. Sometimes we would disrupt a herd of wild bay and palomino horses, that would gallop away. Once we parked, Riley always offered me one of his Lucky Strikes. I didn’t ask if they were stolen; we respected each other that way. Then he would say something like, “You think we’re ever going to make it out of here?” I typically shrugged in response. I never dreamed what went beyond those mountains. I enjoyed hearing the stories fron the tourists, just like my father. The world seemed wild and fantastic, but there was something compelling about watching the arid day melt into a painting of red, gold, and purple. There was something magical about the brilliance of the night sky, shimmering like a plate of pearls. Tourists came here for a reason. I once tried to explain that to Riley; his face contorted instantly to anger. He was lean with oddly pale skin. He was always slightly sunburnt, his nose always peeling. His cheeks were spattered with freckles, and his rust colored hair was a bit too long, too wild. When I disagreed, his lips twisted down and he took a long tug of his cigarette before flicking the half-used butt away. “You gotta grow up someday, Liam,” he would say to me. I never knew what he meant by “grow up.” I was too scared to ask. Once when I angered him in one of our hangouts he left me stranded as night overtook the land. The flatland we frequented had no streetlamps,

a perfect place to stargaze, but the worst place to get left behind. I was too scared to move, believing that I had become easy prey for scorpions and rattlers. Then, I thought a mule deer would attack me. About a thousand feet further, I saw Riley’s headlights turn back towards me. I had nightmares that night of being stuck in place, hunted by something in the distance. That was only once, though. Riley and I shared special moments here—him pushing me to dream, and me not quite knowing how to. Our lives were simple until Selena arrived. •••

The Wilson family down the road decided to foster Selena after giving up on having a child of their own. They were a kind couple, quiet. I didn’t know much about them aside from the fact Donald Wilson owned the quaint grocery store in town. Selena was sixteen years old when she arrived to Fredonia. Riley and I were sitting on the stairs leading into the house when Selena moved in. It was mid-August and the air was especially dry that week. A baseball cap cast a shadow over my brother’s eyes, but I could tell he never moved his gaze from the figure in the distance. “Looks like the Wilsons’ new girl is moving in,” he said. The Wilsons had thrown a small party the week prior upon discovering they had been approved as a foster home. We had even seen Mr. Wilson sweeping his yard the day before. “Let’s go introduce ourselves.” “Shouldn’t we give her some time to settle in?” I said. I felt a pinch of nervousness squeezing my gut. Riley had always been more outgoing than me. “What better way to settle in than to meet your neighbors?” Riley countered. I looked down at my hands, defeated. Then, Riley stood and began walking towards the Wilsons’ house, not even looking over his shoulder to see if I followed. Of course I did. As we grew nearer we could see a few neighbors peeking outside of their windows. Typical routine for anyone new that moved into the town. Sure, we all knew each other, but newcomers had to be broken in.

When we approached, Selena was leaning into the trunk of the Wilsons’ car, grunting as she struggled with an especially heavy bag. “Need help?” Riley said. Startled, she leaped backwards. “No,” she said, coldly, then turned back to her belongings. Riley, unfazed, slid a cigarette from his pocket and lit it up. “Sure?” Riley goaded. I fidgeted nervously in the background. She hadn’t even noticed me it seemed, and I didn’t want her to. “Yupp.” “I’m Riley,” he said. Riley glanced in my direction, “This is my little brother, Liam. We’d be more than happy to help you move in, y’know.” Exhaling loudly and leaning back out of the trunk, Selena took a long look at my brother, her nose crinkling slightly at the cigarette. Then, her sky blue eyes turned to me. She looked unblinkingly at me as though she was reading every thought that crossed my mind. Her hair was brown and curly, absurdly untamable, and she refused to pull it up. A sprinkle of sweat gathered on her temples and upper lip, occasionally a droplet would glide down the side of her cheek. She was on the short side, but that didn’t make her any less intimidating. “Selena,” she said, looking back to Riley. “What brings you here?” Riley asked. I frowned at him and his openness. We already knew she was a foster kid. Selena, however, laughed. Her laugh was gravelly, like when my brother drove on a patch of broken pavement. “Too active for my last home. Had to go somewhere where I couldn’t cause ‘trouble.’” Together she and Riley grinned. Then, she returned back to the trunk and heaved a large suitcase out. Glancing back at us before going inside the house she said, “Told yah I didn’t need help. Nice to meet you, Riley. Liam.” That night I was woken to three sharp knocks at the front door. Through my window flashes of blue and red turned the bedroom into a silent carnival of sorts. I heard my father’s muffled footsteps. He tripped and cursed quietly at something in his way. There was a familiar creak of the front door and then more indistinguishable voices. Sneaking out of bed, I opened my curtains and looked out. My room conveniently overlooked our street. Across from the house I could see a nosy neighbor peeking from

behind their curtains as well. Below me I could see Riley, head bowed as my father addressed him. I could tell by his tone he was both angry and disappointed, although I didn’t know for what reason. Sherriff Townsend stood beside Riley. He was a stout, balding man who reminded me of a bulldog. He had fat cheeks and black eyes that gleamed in the slightest bit of light. While I always made sure to keep my distance, Riley always seemed to fall into his hands. In the back of the police car I saw the familiar wild faced girl that I met earlier that day. As Riley scuffled into the house, I dove back into my bed. Only then did I read my alarm clock: 2 a.m. The following morning, Dad ate his toast with residual anger between every bite, eyes glaring down to his plate. Riley stabbed at his eggs with similar ferocity. My mother seemed unaware, or at least she pretended to be. There was no conversation. Riley and I left for school that morning with obligatory “I love you’s.” After school, Dad forced Riley to work in the shop. He obeyed, but his spirit was still unbroken. I saw less and less of Riley as time went on. He no longer took me out on the weekends; instead every moment was spent with Selena. I grew jealous of her, hated her progressively more every time I saw her. Aside from school, I only saw Selena as she entered her house after getting off the bus (I believe the Wilsons had tried grounding her, but at night she would escape their grasp). I would hear Riley frequently sneaking in late at night. He and Selena had grown much slicker about their escape methods. Only once they were found dancing on the open plain under the moonlight. The same flatlands that had been ours had become theirs. In Riley’s absence, I understood what loneliness felt like. One Thursday morning, two months after Selena arrived, I looked Riley in the eyes and said, “Want to hang out this weekend?” We both knew Riley was stuck. The minute I made my suggestion, Dad had perked up. There was no way Riley could deny my request without Dad’s interrogation. “Sure,” he said and shrugged, pretending nonchalance. I was surprised when the Saturday dusk colored the sky, Riley peered into my room to ask if I was ready. He had actually remembered. Once in the truck, my knees bounced with excitement. He looked mildly

bored, but I wanted him to remember the fun we once had. Maybe we could picture the world around us again, or try. The mountains ahead of us seemed to reach towards the heavens. Riley once told me that the mountains were made of fallen gods. When I asked why, he said, “They were curious about the Earth and got stuck.” I wondered if any gods were left in the realm above the clouds. Riley then said, “And dusk happens because those gods use their spears to poke the sky. That’s why the mountains are pointed. They’re trying to get back to heaven.” I didn’t believe him after he said that; I didn’t think beauty could be caused by such violence. I tried imagining mighty creatures poking towards the sky right in front of our eyes. I could not. As we approached our spot, I noticed a familiar curly haired figure in the distance: Selena. I felt my lips tighten in anger. She stood and stretched, both arms reaching upwards, as we stopped beside her. Riley hardly waited for the truck to stop before he jumped out and embraced her. I heard her laugh, my eyes dropped to my hands. I heard them kiss. My shoulders slumped. I knew how the gods felt then being trapped in a place they didn’t want to be. “You gonna come out or sit in there and sulk all day?” Selena asked leaning in the driver’s window. In the open cab in the back, I could feel Riley get in and begin arranging the blankets. He always had blankets and a cooler filled with water and beer for times like this. I nodded at Selena and avoided her eyes as I exited the passenger side of the truck. Skirting around to the back, I stood with my hands awkwardly in my pockets. I could feel Selena’s eyes on me. Her gaze felt like the sun on my cheeks; my face flooded with warmth. I finally glanced up at her and noticed how much she had tanned in the two months since living here. Her dark skin only made her eyes pop out more. “How’ve yah been?” She asked, leaning towards me. “Okay,” I responded, looking up towards Riley. I could feel my lips still pulled down in a frown that I feared would become permanent. “Anything new? Exciting?” I shrugged. Thankfully, Riley jumped out of the cab before I could answer. I scrambled into the back trying to get as much distance between me and Selena as possible. Behind me, I heard her scold Riley for trying to

help her up. “I got it, I got it,” she said to him. After hoisting herself into the back, Riley followed in pursuit and plopped down between the two of us. He immediately passed around the Lucky Strikes, per usual. Selena took one and then I fumbled with the package as I retrieved a cigarette as well, not to be bested by the woman across from me. Riley raised his eyebrows in surprise, but did not comment. That was the first cigarette I ever smoked, and it seemed oddly heavy between my fingers. I had watched Riley light his cigarettes so often in the past that I had little trouble lighting my own. I took my first drag of the cigarette and the smoke slithered down my throat and into my lungs. I breathed deeper, feigning expertise, until I sputtered forward, seized with deep, body-shaking coughs. I scrambled for a water from the cooler and expected an outbreak of laughter from Riley and Selena. They only watched me with quiet eyes as I took big gulps. “Little inhales, Liam. Gotta get your lungs built up to it,” Riley said when I was done drinking. Collectively, we sat in silence for a while as the colors grew more vibrant in the sky. Selena and Riley occasionally took a drag from their cigarettes. I wanted to forget mine and let the lines of dead ash fall onto the land beside the truck. “You ever think of what’s beyond those mountains?” Riley asked. “Dad told us once that it’s only more flatland,” I said. “Remember?” “No, no I mean, like, beyond,” Riley said. I saw his lips twist in mild frustration as he took another drag of his cigarette. “Like the forests, the ocean, the fields of flowers. . .Tell him about the hydrangea fields,” Riley said with a grin. His eyes were bright and I think he wanted to hear the story more than I did. Selena, in turn, looked out over the dry plain that stretched before us. “It was magical. Imagine this land with green bushes and puffy, bulbous flowers that are light pink and baby blue. Everywhere! There is moisture in the air and life in the plants,” she said. I didn’t believe her at first, I had only seen one hydrangea plant years earlier when a neighbor down the road tried to spruce up their lawn. My father had called it a

“Snow Queen” in passing. It had hundreds of cone-shaped heads and thousands of small white flowers. It died weeks later, my neighbor unable to keep up with the plant’s neediness, I assumed. I couldn’t imagine fields of them. “There is life here,” I argued. Selena and Riley fell silent for a moment and I felt like shrinking. “Where?” Riley asked. “In the mountains, in the sky. Look, there are horses in the distance even. People visit here for a reason. It’s beautiful. It may be dry and hot and poor, but it’s beautiful,” I said. I was met with another long silence as the two took a collective drag from their cigarettes. “You’re right, Liam,” Selena said at last. I looked over victoriously towards Riley, but his eyes were faced towards Selena in absolute admiration. “But,” she continued, and I felt my ego deflate, “there are places beyond here that are so much more. The plants grow, flourish, die, and are reborn. There are seasons: the freeze of winter, the chill of spring, the warmth of summer, the coolness of fall. Things that do not exist here; places you can’t even imagine.” I wondered if the coolness she talked about was similar to the relief my throat felt when I drank the water earlier. I suddenly felt parched again, but the water did not satisfy me this time. I tried to envision the land before me filled with this wonderful life that Selena described. I could not. “Have you guys ever driven with the horses?” Selena asked suddenly, pulling me from my thoughts. Riley and I exchanged a look. I felt my gut twist at the excitement in his eyes. “Do you want to?” Riley asked. She nodded and without another word Riley leapt from the back of the truck. He hurried into the driver’s seat and began the engine. Selena reached forward and lifted the back of the cab so that it clicked into place. With little protection, my heart raced. Goosebumps raised on my skin. “Ready?” Riley shouted out of the window. I opened my mouth to protest, but Selena beat me to it. “Yeah, hold on!” she shouted to me. In a moment Riley had taken off towards the horses. The initial jolt was so violent that my small frame

would have bounced right out of the cab if not for Selenaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cool, calloused hand that wrapped around my wrist and kept me grounded. I think I lost my heart somewhere as we raced down that bumpy road. My nervousness soon faded as I watched the dust cloud in our wake. I turned towards the horses, who brayed in dismay at our fast pace. No one purposefully disturbed them, never mind approached them. Selena released me and lifted both hands to the sky, shouting. Her words were stolen by the wind. They werenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t for anyone, anyway. Her hair whipped around her face. She reminded me of the mountain gods in the distance, except that she was free and alive. My brother was also whooping out of the window in pure delight. I joined in, raising my hands to the sky and howling. The truck caught up with the horses and we rode next to them. Riley pushed the vehicle to its limits and it clattered and coughed the entire way. Beside me was a dark brown mustang. His nostrils flared and ears twisted back and then forward as we made eye contact. Even he seemed mildly curious of the foreign entity riding beside him. I saw the way his hooves smacked onto the ground causing dust clouds of their own, the ripple of muscles in his shoulders. I imagined myself on top of one of those wild mustangs. It was cream-colored with a long blond mane that I gripped onto. I could feel its exhale with every landing as it galloped forward, could feel the round belly between my legs. I felt the breath leave its lungs, felt the sturdiness of its back. Soon, I was racing through a field with tall grass that brushed my cheeks. The plants were gentle and welcoming as we raced by. We approached a lake and ran right over the water. The droplets from the hooves splashed against me. I was unafraid. Riley veered away from the herd after some time and I returned to reality. We sat breathlessly as the truck came to a natural stop. Night was quickly taking over the sky, but we stayed still and silent until the stars shone above us. Only then did Riley drive us home. That night I fell into a deep slumber and dreamed of riding horses around the world. I was awoken vaguely by red and blue lights shining into my window, but I turned over and returned to my dream. The following morning, Riley looked dead-eyed as he worked

in the shop. He didn’t speak to me or Dad. The customers even avoided him whenever possible. His feet shuffled against the ground and his head drooped as if his neck were unable to hold his weight anymore. I had never seen Riley in such poor spirits. It wasn’t until lunch that I got an opportunity to speak with him. “What happened?” I asked. Riley shrugged in response. “You weren’t at breakfast this morning. . .” I said, trailing off. “They’re taking her away,” Riley said at last. His voice cracked and eyes glistened. “Taking her to a place in Vegas until they can find a new foster home. The Wilsons are done with her.” “When?” I asked. “Today. Now.” “What happened?” I asked. Only now did the smallest grin tilt the edge of Riley’s lips. “We tried to leave. Made a damn good run on it too. Ruined the truck, but almost got away,” he said. I didn’t respond to him, didn’t know how to. “Well, you know how they feel about our 2 a.m. escapades. They would hunt us forever if we had actually left,” Riley said. His voice broke in a final crack and he hurried to fish a cigarette from his back pocket. I nodded, watched as he lit the cigarette, and thought of the girl who taught me about wildflower fields. We worked late that night. Dad was grumpy and made sure we stayed long past when the stars had come out. As we returned home and were climbing up the stairs leading into the house, I saw Riley looking towards the Wilsons’ home. The lights were off, there was no car in the driveway. Two months after mysteriously arriving, Selena left the same way. I continued having wild dreams every night. ••• After Selena moved, Riley worked diligently at the shop once school ended. He made repairs to his truck. Mom and Dad thought it was a magical turnaround, but they didn’t notice the dullness of his eyes. Almost a year and a half after Selena left, Riley graduated high school. A

week later, he tried to leave, sneaking out in the middle of the night. He stopped by my room before he left. “Liam, I’m leaving,” Riley whispered into the darkness. I was groggy from sleep. “What?” I asked. “I’m leaving.” “Where?” “I. . .I don’t know. Somewhere, anywhere but here. I want to find her again. Maybe find a forest, I don’t know,” he said. I could hear a hint of fear in his voice. “I didn’t know if you wanted to come with me,” he said. We both paused in terse silence as my dad coughed in his sleep across the hall. “I’m only fourteen, Riley,” I said and sat up in bed. “So?” “What would I do even? I can’t, I have to wait,” I said. I expected my brother to flare in anger, but instead he tightly hugged me. I was unaccustomed to the affection, but after a moment I gripped him back tightly. “Okay,” he said and turned to leave. “Good luck,” I whispered and received a soft chuckle before his form disappeared from my room. •••

Riley’s truck was found abandoned fifteen miles away from town at the bottom of an embankment later that afternoon. Detectives said a mule deer must have jumped in front of him. My father and I searched for him the entire month following, even late at night when only the moon and headlights were our guide (I think my father dared the deer to jump in front of us, wanted some sort of revenge). Riley’s body was never recovered. Selena never returned. Twenty years later, I took ownership of Second Chance Fuel. My family didn’t talk much about Riley, and never spoke of Selena. They both had become ghosts to the land. On warm summer days, as I drove through the desert, sometimes I imagined a figure in the distance, facing towards the mountains with unruly brown hair. I habitually bought Lucky Strikes,

but never smoked them. I enjoyed helping the broken-down tourists at the shop and told them the story of the mountain gods. When no one was around I told the story to myself, but instead of gods the mountains were Riley and Selena, alive and reaching towards heaven. Always escaping a little bit more than the rest of us. In my dreams at night I became a wild mustang, and felt the grass and leaves against my body as I galloped towards a mountain that always stayed a thousand feet away.

Love: A Study of Diotima’s Speech and Trinity College’s Bust of Socrates Alex Wasalinko

Earl Grey Kathleen Heslin

Prelude At the counter, I forgive the owner of the lively eyes and impish curly hair, who misheard earl grey tea as a flavored coffee that would poison a diabetic. It is easy to flirt with eyes that sweeten small talk into a glittering confection. This is empty-calorie flirting, the powdered doughnut of bare human interactions. I depart with a grin that sits like a sugar cube on my tongue, and then I am back in my chair with my earl grey and my laptop and no sugar cube and no name for the man with the lively eyes. I bury myself in my work, imitating the man being swallowed by a newspaper at the next table, and wonder if too many sugar cubes will blacken my teeth and clog up my heart. I glut myself on words and tea.

Act I I thank the obliging couches that conspire to muffle the protest of plates against cups, the complaint of exhausted chairs, the bland cacophony that stretches web-like across the room. A small espresso, please Tell me about your faith Like a banana, or something Wolverineâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s superpower is that he has giant knives on his hands I would grab a thread and track it across the shop to indifferent banana girl or man-who-called-bone-claws-giant-knives, but no, that would be risky. I might tear the thread. Breaking the web is a cardinal sin of coffee shops: sacred places of refuge from the world, for being alone with cherished friends and alone with cherished tea. I have never finished a crossword The man with the lively eyes escapes to his cigarette break.

I wonder how much of his day is a bid to torment his lungs as they struggle with the air that mingles with smoke in his mouth. He sighs out the poison smoke. I wonder how well he knows the street, whether he sketches out new details with each dose of nicotine and tar. But I am here to pop sugar cubes. I am one to criticize. I knew the Lord was calling me there The figure at the next table escapes his paper and topples a chair like a skyscraper. Above him, a star-shaped light twists with the utmost subtlety from the left to the right and back. Perhaps it is determined to twinkle like the real stars in the black sky. Perhaps it fails to understand that atmospheric turbulence is the culprit; and this bound star will never feel the atmospheric winds. Intermission The star swivels; quickly, I compare swiveling to sugar-cube eating. I decide to tread around the web. I will venture up to the counter and order myself some wholesome food

and link a name to the lively eyes. At the counter, I forget all chains of words except the stodgy could I have more water and thank you. His eyes twinkle and my eyes twinkle, and I take some sugar for my tea and sigh at my fleeing feet. Act II Every passerby peers inside, as though they expect to witness marvels, not coffee machines and webs of chatter. They should expect clichĂŠs. What is more trite than a pensive girl with laptop and tea in the crowd of a coffee shop? But we were together, so it was fun I am content with the warm dregs of tea, whirring laptop, silent table. This is a place of sociable solitude, and flecks of tea in cups, and powdered doughnuts: a pit stop for serenity before I return myself to the street.

2:00 am Katelyn Moore

I never would have imagined that I could feel this way, lying in your bed where we’ve been giggling for hours and looking intently at each other. We say that we’ll go to sleep soon. Like weeds, anxiety grows inside my stomach and I don’t feel quite at home anymore. I notice how empty your walls are, and quietly I can imagine loneliness from a perspective other than my own.

Hannibal in Shadow Megan Bershefsky

Paige Angela Raieski The small nubs of leftover nail glare up at her from their nests in her nail beds, mocking her, taunting her. Unfocusing her eyes, her long fingers, her fat fingers, are a blur of pinkish flesh with a shiny white backdrop of her bathroom floor. Stark white tiles with a glare of light shining off the curved corners of every tile. Cold light, no sunlight, only florescent shine. The cold climbs into the soles of her feet. And starts to spread. Her feet. The toenails are perfect. The edges are smooth. The cuticles seamlessly follow the curve of each nail, convex, concave. The barely visible remnant of pale pink polish hug the edges of her big toes. The polish from a pedicure done weeks ago for her sister’s wedding. Such a pretty wedding. The official invitation came ages before, addressed to “Page W. Crain.” Then her sister changed her name. Took another person’s name, a stranger’s name. License. Facebook. E-mail. Credit cards. All changed. All foreign. She watched her hands fall, felt them brush against the almostsmooth skin above her ankles. Her chest parallel her thighs parallel the seat. Skin on skin on porcelain. Porcelain on skin on skin. But they were all touching and parallel lines aren’t supposed to touch so they all must be one. But her thighs were not smooth and the toilet seat was perfectly so. Her chest had lumps and her thighs straight muscle. She must unfold. Her torso unsticks from her thighs and leads the rest of her body into a straight line, one single line. Side step once, step forward once. A trickle on the inside of her leg tickles her knee. Only blotches of her face look back from the shallow depth of the mirror. The strange marks draw attention away from the frightened-looking woman in front of her.

Bold strokes. Thick lines. Thicker curves. Pink defining every letter. She squints, then widens her eyes. Squints again. A large P she finally finds amongst the pink, with half of her eyes reflected inside the loop. A small blob seems to hug the first, a small blob must be another letter. A circle, a circle gone round and round many times, clockwise, fast clockwise, then a tangent that points at the sink. Her mouth opens to echo the hard sound off the mirror. Echo. Echo. She can almost read it. Her body almost vibrates, she rocks on her heels. The next letter—it’s large. Twice the size of the “P.” A gentle curve, so pretty, makes her want to trace it with her eyes over and over. Like the piece of her fingernail when it perfectly rips across the entire top, but now it is sideways. Then the curve doesn’t end simply. The bottom rises up. Sharp turn. Her hand rises halfway to her mouth, quicker than she could tear her eyes from the now clear letters. Too clear letters. She grabs one hand with the other, leaving the strengthless battle between the two level with her waist, like a war, like a prayer. Her eyes race looking for something else, something else besides what it is, around and around the mirror. Had to be there. “I…I…i i i.” Her hands cease the battle-prayer, and immediately she finds herself digging out her leftover nails with her teeth. Catching a jagged edge of a thumb nail, she quickly rips the jagged edge off of her body. Bringing her hand close to her eyes she sees a dark red mixing with the bright pink that covers the tips of her fingers. Half of her mouth sways under the name in front of her. With a shaky smile, she sees bright pink flecks on her smooth white teeth. Pink. Dulce Diva Pink. Pink. She should ask her sister how she changed her name.

Pairs Lizzy Polishan Christian: I’ve been looking at you all night. Marcel: I’ve been looking at the floor.You’ve got excellent shoes. They’re almost as nice as your suit. Christian:You like my suit? Marcel: I love your suit. I’ve been trying to imagine your suit without you in it all night, but your body keeps getting in the way. Christian: I can’t say that I can say the same. Marcel: Of course you can’t. My suit is hideous. It’s very erotic.You’ve imagined me without it at least six times, to give your eyes a break from this paisley. But your suit’s so opaque—I haven’t seen you naked once. Who did you say designed it? Christian: I didn’t. Marcel: Well who designed it? Christian: I did. Marcel: Really? Christian: Are you impressed? Marcel: I’m impressed with your seams. I can’t see your seams at all. Who taught you how to sew?

Christian: My mother says I came out of her womb holding a needle and thread, but I’ve had mentors. Of course. A little of this, a little of that. A butcher, a baker, a candlestick maker. A painter, a priest— Marcel: Don’t be cute. Christian: Mostly my grandma. Marcel: My grandma’s always wanted to sew, but she was born without any hands. Christian: I’m sorry to hear that. Marcel: She’s not. She can’t hear a thing. Christian: She’s deaf? Marcel: She doesn’t have ears. Christian: Can she speak? Marcel: She speaks sign language. Christian: How can she sign without hands? Marcel: What happened to her hands? Christian: She doesn’t have any. Marcel: What did you do with them? Christian: She’s never had any! Marcel: Of course she has hands. How else could she sign? Weren’t you

listening? Christian: Very closely.You said she was born without hands. Marcel: She was born without hands, sure. But she’s had hands for a while. Her boyfriend—my grandpa—had an extra pair. He found them in the suit he rented for his father’s second wedding and he sewed them on her wrists and it was love at first sight. Well after he sewed in her eyeballs. Christian: She was born without eyeballs? Marcel: That was a joke. Please be sensitive. Just because she can’t speak doesn’t mean that she’s blind. Christian: I’m sorry. Marcel: It’s all right. Anyways, now she’s got plenty of hands. A pair for speaking, a pair for sleeping, a pair for prayer. She found a new pair on a playground last week, abandoned and almost new, at the top of a slide. They fit like a glove. I think they belonged to a Jesuit. They’re obsessed with grabbing bottles and glasses of whiskey and they speak in tongues and I can’t understand a word they’re saying and she told me not to tell anyone—she said they might be weirded out. Christian: By the hands? Marcel: By the tongues. Speaking in tongues weirds people out. She said she likes the way it feels though—she said it makes her feel calm and like she’s seen more things than she has. That pair of hands has the most stories, she says. They’re pretty good—she’s told me a few. Christian: In signs? Or in tongues? Marcel: Oh, usually in English. Sometimes in French. Usually she only speaks French when she’s remembering her childhood, and she sounds like

a broken record. She’s circular, says the same thing over and over again. Je suis née sans les mains—Je n’ai pas les mains—it’s that her memories and her present have started sliding together. She’s getting old, and she forgets she’s got hands until we point to them. That’s the only thing that brings her back to the States, her hands. Christian: I can’t tell if you’re serious. Marcel: I can’t tell if you’re rude because you were born that way or because you’re trying to take me home. Dementia is nothing to joke about. Christian: I’m sorry. You know, I was leaning toward the latter, but now I’m not so sure. Marcel: Is it the tongues? Christian: I think it’s the hands. But, seeing as I’ve seen you naked, the least I can do is buy you a drink. Have you ever had a monkey gland? Marcel: I can try a monkey gland. Christian: (ordering) Two monkey glands. (turns back to Marcel) I’m Christian, by the way. I’ve been looking at you all night.

Passing Sarah Iannucci 57

Something Peter Shaver

In the arms of something needled and far away, you woke when rain fell on your neck. It didn’t start this way. From something. It beat, suffered, and strained, and breathed and began. There was the wave of some hand. There was the waves crashing and crashing land. In one ear, there was a whisper you didn’t hear. You felt a passing animal fear that one day there’d be nothing here. There’s something here.

Baby SummerVaughan Jack keeps a black bear in his backyard: dressed up, neck tethered. He makes her dance, calls her Baby. Stand, Baby. Spin, Baby. Pink tulle catches on chain-link, tears. Neighbors gather on the lawn for an eight o’clock show. * When Lyla took off in her car-auction Cadillac, Jack was still at work, sloughing burger grease from a flattop grill. Aside from a satin slip hung by its straps on the bedroom doorknob and a scar stitched down the left side of the mattress, she’d left Jack with nothing to trace. He waited up. He left the light on. When he realized what she’d done, he crawled into her slip and fell asleep running his fingers down its side seams. * After a bear broke into Old Ada’s double-wide, the men stayed late nights on their porches with rifles on their laps and hounds off-leash. By the time the bear came around again, Lyla was gone. The crowd roared when Buddy shot her from a tree and her cub cried steady through the night. Jack set a trap by the compost pile. By the next summer, Lyla’s slip was in a box beneath the mattress and Baby was learning her name. * It was May when Lyla started shivering. Jack said he’d hold her through the comedown, but then he had to leave for work. Before his

shift was over, Lyla had already taken a razor to the belly of the mattress. I thought I’d find something in there. Jack took off his shoes and changed the sheets, all the while asking what she thought she’d find. Lyla told him of a dream she’d mistaken for a memory. A homemade circus. A metropolis, glimmering. A sideshow attraction: The Bearded Woman. She told him of the tent, the white horses, the beautiful arms of the aerialists, the way everyone they’d ever known lined up at the back gate for a chance to see the bearded woman dance. I’m sorry you missed it. They fell asleep, bodies pressed into the gutted mattress. * At the edge of the driveway, someone sets off a Roman candle. Baby starts, rattles the chain-link. The crowd howls. Steady, Baby. A child walks the rim of a truck bed, arms outstretched. Jack thinks of the November ice cream shop holdup, how the gunman’s hand shook until the police arrived. All the while, Lyla’s ice cream melted in tracks down her arm and onto her shoes. From a blanket on the lawn, a girl called Charlie imagines herself someplace else. The quarterback hurls a beer can at Baby’s chest. The night of the holdup, Lyla set Jack’s hand on her stomach. I can still see my bones. How was I supposed to know? Jack looks for Lyla’s face in Charlie’s, but it’s lost in the glare of headlights. * Before she left, Lyla wrote the due date down the thigh of a Playboy centerfold. Jack found it a few years later, facedown on the box spring. After he hauled the stitched-up mattress down to the curb and replaced it with a new one, he bought a pair of dollar store goggles and swam to the bottom of Price Lake. Briefly, he mistook a sunken pair of glasses for a side-view mirror. I thought I’d find something in there. When he got home, he pulled the satin slip from its box and hung it by its straps from the bedroom doorknob.

* For the grand finale, Baby climbs a ladder and waves from the top. The crowd applauds, Baby comes down. Aluminum cans like Easter eggs in the grass catch the porch light. Jack imagines Lyla in a leotard, on a tightrope. He imagines her on a blanket, on the lawn. A homemade circus. A metropolis, glimmering. A sideshow attraction: the way Charlie keeps catching the eye of the quarterback.

Untitled Sarah Iannucci 62

3-legged dog Peter Shaver

In another life, you were a poet. And I was a 3-legged dog. We lived in montana. You wrote poems about the tundra and the weight of the sun on the snow. They were wild. You slapped my nose with a newspaper, and I pissed in the yard. Your brother’d come on sundays with beer, when we were still young. He’d give me some. I loved to live with you. The river ran swiftly. You could see it from the porch. I couldn’t swim for shit. When I was wet, you’d let me in.

Contributors Megan Bershefsky is a senior international studies and philosophy doublemajor in the SJLA Program. Cara Charles is a sophomore English and philosophy double-major in the SJLA Program. Scott Curran is a junior biology major in the SJLA Program. Kathleen Heslin is a junior biology major in the SJLA and Honors Programs. Christa Howarth is a senior philosophy and theology/religious studies double-major in the SJLA Program. Sarah Iannucci is a junior biology major. Laura Manrique is a junior psychology major. Katelyn Moore is a junior journalism major. Dan Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Reilly is a junior English, theology/religious studies, and philosophy triple-major in the SJLA Program. Brina Platt is a senior English major. Lizzy Polishan is a senior English and philosophy double-major in the SJLA and Honors Programs. Angela Raieski is a senior English, mathematics, and philosophy triple-major in the SJLA Program. Peter Shaver is a junior English and journalism double-major in the Honors Program. Summer Vaughan is a senior English major in the Honors Program.

Yunghsin Wang/Kristine is an exchange student from Taiwan. She has an undergraduate degree in law from National Taiwan University and is pursuing a masterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s degree in translation from Fu Jen Catholic University. Alex Wasalinko is a senior English and philosophy double-major in the SJLA and Honors Programs. Erica Westlake is a junior biology and philosophy double-major in the SJLA Program. St. John Whittaker is a first-year biochemistry major in the SJLA Program.

Acknowledgments Esprit appreciates the kind support of:

Rebecca Beal Dennis Berfield Valarie Clark Wendy Diehl Melissa Eckenrode Mary Engel Kevin Flanagan Olivia Gillespie John Meredith Hill Joseph Kitcho Joe Kraus Darlene Miller-Lanning Rich Larsen Michael Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Steen Sharon Olechna Glen Pace Tim Palumbo Lindsey Pelucacci Frank Rutkowski Finnbarr Whittaker Hamish Whittaker Jenny Whittaker Ronan Whittaker Stephen Whittaker Kristen Yarmey Grandma Zaffuto CLP Physical Plant Staff The Skunk Coleslaw

Esprit Submission Information Esprit, a review of arts and letters, features work by students of The University of Scranton and is published each fall and spring as a co-curricular activity of the English department. We will consider a maximum of five visual art submissions (art and/or photography) and five literary submissions (poetry and/or prose) per author/ artist. Esprit does not accept resubmissions, works currently under consideration elsewhere, or previously published works. Manuscripts (Electronic Submission) Original stories, poems, essays, translations, features, sketches, humor, satire, interviews, reviews and short plays must be typed and saved in Microsoft Word file format (.docx). All manuscripts, except poetry and short plays, must be double-spaced. Every page of the manuscript must list the title and page number in the upper right corner. It is recommended that all manuscripts be submitted in 12-point Times New Roman font. The author’s name must NOT appear at any point in the manuscript to ensure that all submissions are judged anonymously. Each submission is to be saved as a separate Word file, and all submissions are to be attached to a single email and sent to espritsubmissions@scranton.edu from the author’s University email account. The text of the email itself must contain the following information:

Writer’s name Royal ID number Local mailing address and phone number Year in school and enrollment status (full-time or part-time) Major(s) and honors program(s) (Business Leadership, Honors, or SJLA) Genre(s) of submissions emailed (poetry or prose) Title of each work submitted in the listed genre(s)

Submissions received late, mislabeled or emailed without all of the above information completed will NOT be considered. Graphics (Physical Submission) Black and white/color photographs and pen and ink drawings work best in this format, but pencil drawings, collages and paintings will be considered. Physical copies of all original works must be submitted in a plain manila envelope. The artist’s name must NOT appear on either the work or on the envelope. All visual art submissions should include, on the backside, the title of the piece and an arrow indicating the orientation of the work. A CD-R or disposable flash drive with digital copies of the submitted works must also be included; the CD-R or flash drive must also be labeled with the name of the artist and the titles of the works contained. Please note that only physical copies of the submitted works will be

reviewed by the staff during the selection process; quality of the print may thus affect the consideration of photography submissions. When the work submitted is a study of, or is otherwise dependent upon, another artist’s work, please supply the other artist’s name and that work’s title. All visual art submissions must include an index card containing the following information:

Artist’s name Royal ID number Local mailing address and phone number Year in school and enrollment status (full-time or part-time) Major(s) and honors program(s) (Business Leadership, Honors or SJLA) Medium(s) of included submission(s) (photo, paint, charcoal, etc.) Title of each work submitted in the listed medium(s)

Submissions received late, mislabeled, faintly printed, damaged or submitted without a hard copy print, soft copy or completed index card containing the above information will NOT be considered. Visual art submissions can be deposited at the following address:

Esprit Room 221 McDade Center for Literary and Performing Arts Scranton, PA 18510 (570) 941-4343

Please do NOT address questions regarding submission policy to espritsubmissions@scranton.edu; this email address is expressly for receiving prose and poetry submissions and will not be accessed until the Esprit submission deadline has passed. Questions should instead be addressed to the Editor-in-Chief for the Fall 2017 semester, Scott Curran, (scott.curran@scranton.edu). All submissions are reviewed anonymously. All submissions to Esprit that have been accepted for publication by the editors and that are the work of currently enrolled full-time undergraduates at The University of Scranton will be considered, according to genre, for The Berrier Prose Award ($100), The Berrier Poetry Award ($100) and The Esprit Graphics Award ($100). Deadline for submissions for Fall 2017: 20 October 2017 Esprit is available online at scranton.edu/esprit.

Partial Staff Photo, Spring 2017 Poetry Edit