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tufts observer
The Literary Issue. Vol. CXXVIII. Issue 3.
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Tufts Observer
March 5, 2018
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March 5, 2018
Leditor 135 Hey Lady Print Artwork Water Memory Sweetgrass Dolls Falling Asleep on the Couch at a Party Filled With Rain Collages In Motion Weekend Visit Sun Haiku Artwork Pantoum Not My Mother Hive Mind untitled Neosporin Carp in the Bathtub Border Town on Huayang Street Photos
2 4 5 6 8 9 10 12 13 14 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
Ruthie Block and Cris Paulino Paula Gil-Ordoñez Gomez Rosa Stern Pait Aidan Huntington Stuart Montgomery Emma Herdman Elisa Sturkie Liam Knox Amy Ly Akbota Saudabayeva Alexandra Strong Rosa Stern Pait Jeremiah Sears Jeremiah Sears Yoon Sung Emmett Pinsky Jess O’Flanigan Andrew Yang Morgan Farrar Tessa Abedon May Hong May Hong Tati Doyle
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Letter from the Editors
4 Tufts Observer April 23, 2018
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Well hello! We are not usually the people talking to you here, but boy are we excited to be, if just this once. We write to you from these fledgling days of March, in a post-snow/delayed opening haze. March always feels like a turning point—we spring forward, the grass gets greener, we power through (fall victim to) midterms and can see summer on the horizon. Break comes and goes sprinting by. And so we gift to you this here literary issue—poetry, prose, art, and nothing more or less— as we turn the corner around the first quarter of the year and approach the times when we can leave our afternoon classes and find that the sun is still out. We hope you find yourself, or love, or meaning, or something to hold or be held by here. There was so much beauty in the submissions that we sifted through, and we’ve done our best to distill them comprehensively. This year has been quite a whirlwind. This collection has, for us, reflections of that, counters to that, and some moments of stillness we have sought for so very long. But of course, what you are able to find here is, like the work itself, in your hands now. We are so very grateful to have you here with us, between these pages. We hope you enjoy what these artists have to share. With tender love and realistic optimism, Ruthie Block and Cris Paulino
April 23, 2018 Tufts Observer 5
135
Sweet dreams, out cold. Dawn-- a single bird. Pert, sudden pose-Daybreak-- a companion-Steps, every pulse, one Lost sock, cold toes. Paula Gil-Ordoñez Gomez
4 Tufts Observer march 11, 2019
PHOTOS BY ELLA PAREKH AND JANIE INGRASSIA
A
hey lady Hey lady, the way that I sculpted you from mud my fingers pressed into your waist and your swan arms lifted above your head so you couldn’t even see them because your hands were grabbing a cloud the same way your sharp shout grabs me, Hey lady, it spins me around and pierces me and, hey lady, you’re nothing but good to me. When you’re gone I don’t miss you but when I see your grin splitting apart like a pit of glistening teeth it makes my sweating rash cool and my twisted grimace drown in watered honey. Hey lady, I’m watching you over my shunted shoulder and your elbows are sharpened to a file as your clothes cover your skin. Hey lady, I can see your knotted gold chain behind your hanging hair. Hey lady, your heart is comfortable and wide. I brighten when I see you because you glow a little bit, and you decided I should glow a little too. Hey lady, I told you I was writing for you but you thought I lied.
Rosa Stern Pait
PHOTOS BY JANIE INGRASSIA
March 11, 2019 Tufts Observer 5
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By Aidan Huntington
MARCH 11, 2019 Tufts Observer 7
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PHOTO BY STUART MONTGOMERY
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By Emma Herdman when i was in the city where it rained every single day i went to the gym at my school and sat in the sauna. until the moisture was disintegrated out of my skin and my clothes and into the water cycle. where it formed clouds in the rafters, picked up their piney scent and rained out of my pores again. and the heat would press down and press me together like cooling wax on fingertips. and my body was a hollow that i kept filling with hot lemon elixirs, padding with plush rags and painting whole with crosshatched strokes. once i sat in the sauna until the top of my water bottle melted and my breath came in dry puffs. once, i left the city to visit a friend. i was drowsy from the rain and the ride to get to him. swaddled in bus-dried clothing. He took me to a museum (people always take me to museums) (which sometimes make me feel like an imposter) (always exhaust me). i had tunnel vision. there was a photo exhibit of desert houses one ocean away from there. closer to where i’d started than to the city where it rained every single day. Santa Fe, Alamosa, etc. the structures look dehydrated, bending on themselves like they were reaching inside - grasping at the lives still in there. they had sucked themselves dry choked on red dust. So beautifully parched I thought. Restriction is grace. when i left the city where it rained every single day, i had grown used to the green fuzziness of swelled earth saltiness of wet beach, face, window. the cat tongue licks of sun when it pierced the wet and pooled in puddle impressions. my skull was a basin under a leaky sink pipe. the moisture swelled me there but i was still the temperature of wet, of rain. solvent picks up all the detritus it blankets cold and carries it in its bottomless belly so i went to the desert and laid on the rocks and sand until peppery red was pressed into my pores. and i thought, im a house. i want to be a house my skin shrink wrapped tight around sun-brittle wood frame. and my sweat evaporated before it bubbled to the surface. and i bent in on myself and gripped river-smoothed columns.
ART BY EMMA HERDMAN
mARCH 11, 2019 Tufts Observer 9
Her father had a new car every time she saw him. “New” was a loose term: nothing in her dad’s possession was ever actually new, just used. Still, she remembered when the constant rotation used to be exciting: her tacky, little-kid fingers pulling crusted sweets from between car cushions, or peeling left-behind, goofy stickers off the overhead mirror to affix to her own ratty shirt. In those days kids sat up front, or wherever they pleased, for that matter. In those days a lot of things were different. Now, as she pulled into her dad’s dusty driveway to see yet another unfamiliar car, all she could feel was a deep sense of tiredness. Everything was so much the same that if it weren't for the make of the car, she could’ve been seven years old again, pulling on Libby’s pigtails and running amok in the lowcountry marshes. She waited five minutes before stepping out into the sweltering South Carolina heat. If she waited any longer, she would’ve turned around and left. He was the same too, in all the ways that mattered. So much the same it curled into her teeth and made them grate against each other. For a moment, the ground beneath her feet felt uneven. In the evening, they settled in folding lawn chairs out on his “new” deck, outside his mobile home. “How ya been, Hey?” His voice was gummed up with chewing tobacco, even when he wasn’t chewing it. “It’s Lyn now, Dad.” “Since when?” “Since Sue and I got together, 20 years ago. You know that.” He grumbled and looked off over the sprawling marsh, his knuckles going white on his beer can. The katydids screamed from the branches of the few old oaks that managed to survive the heat, the mud, and the years, their gnarled fingers dripping with spanish moss. Lyn’s shoulders tensed, but all he said was: “Well, you know your mama picked that name out, not me. And ‘sides, I always liked Libby’s version better.” She sighed. “Libby was three, dad, and ‘sides, “Hey Baby” ain’t no real name, no matter what you shorten it to.” She heard the accent seep into her voice and it was like listening to a someone else’s words come from her body. She saw a flash of his yellowed teeth, a hint of a smile. “It’s good to see ya, Hey. Been a long time.”
10 Tufts Observer March 11, 2019
PHOTOS BY STUART MONTGOMERY
Sweetgrass Dolls By Elisa Sturkie
Lyn looked down at her hands wrapped around the beer can, at the small silver ring glinting in the low light. She began twisting it between her fingers. “Yeah, it sure has been.” “You should’a come down for Thanksgiving this year. Libby was wantin’ help with all her little whippersnappers running off to kingdom come. I told her to just let ‘em go off, like y’all used to. If they fall in the pluff mud they’ll learn right quick, I told her, but she was in a right state about it. And I mean a right state.” Memories flooded in like the tide: her dad chasing them around, yelling “y’all little whippersnappers best get back here!”, her single pair of muddy overalls that didn’t get washed for two whole months, and the looks they got when they would go into town. That one time that store clerk said “Y’all must be Bob Hill’s rugrats. Say, where’s your mama?” and she didn’t have an answer, her face feeling hotter than the South Carolina summer. The crabbing cages all stacked up and crusted over with barnacles, where Libby used to hide to scare her, and the smell of the pluff mud like all things old and dying, oozing and pulling at her feet like pitch. Dad and the sweetgrass dolls. Continue reading at tuftsobserver.org.
MARCH 11, 2019 Tufts Observer 11
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Falling asleep on the couch at a party By Liam Knox
12 Tufts Observer March 11, 2019
soft suede laughter lullabies muffle those thoughts that thrive on silence like a fire feeds on oxygen. when I close my eyes, it’s not dark but deep reddish-orange from the candles on the coffee table, still lit, and the world flickers warmly behind my eyelids. immersed in cozy fetal nostalgia, my insomnia fades into washed out colors and is blurred and kind of funny like the muted conversations I can barely make out bobbing in the warm night around me. I forget about the seething machine in my head, its whirring and sputtering drowned out by the pleasant din, and let fatigue pull me in like a sighing lover resting my head on her downy chest, for once unafraid of what my dreams hold. tethered to voices floating just outside comprehension, I drift peacefully into sleep.
ART BY BRENNA TROLLINGER
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filled with rain By Amy Ly
Today I woke up to the pitter-patterns of the sky And the slight grumblings of thunder The rain dissipates and soaks up My own cloudy thoughts. Washing away the worries Trapping them in the dark cotton Of nimbuses above Until another day //a.l., filled with rain 4/19/18
ART BY EMMA HERDMAN
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ARTWORK BY BOTA SAUDABAYEVA WITH EXCERPT BY CRIS PAULINO
MARCH 5, 2018 Tufts Observer 15
Alexandra Strong
in motion
i heard you moved away and i hope that you’re more peaceful now. i bet it was real loud this morning the cacophony of voices rainfall bustling bodies doing nothing to add to your missing as you saw yourself
out
the worst form of white noise that you can’t turn off with the click of a button i hope you feel more peaceful now can hear the flowers bloom your ear is that close to the ground and your hands are heavy and full that when you hold them out in front of you you see all the things you can build and when you hold them to your chest you cradle
that you
so warm
your entire self
because you’re also a project that you’ve invested in and it took far too
long
to recognize what the faults were the smells too static sounds not natural enough. your skin feeling like it’s being poked by hot knives so you had to go you had to s h i f t
to relocate
and
shift
relocate to
develop a way to allow your muscles to unclench themselves start breathing through your nose again slowly open the door for the sounds to walk back in one by one breathe deep breathe deep 16 Tufts Observer march 11, 2019
PHOTOS BY ELLA PAREKH
the weekend visit Rosa Stern Pait all the children return from their weekend trips brown skin caramelized warm blotchy sunburns faded and red mouths like swollen roses, lips closed around plump words cheeks hollow tongue dry eyes feverish skin clean still glimmering with sweat strands of remembered exhaustion like a rainbow the only cracks in their smooth, full wholeness are small their watermelon seed eyes molded nostrils gaping mouths the streaks in their hair still lined with dirt the soap not masking the wildflowers and grass scent they strut, their eyes are eyes wide and beautiful.
march 11, 2019 Tufts Observer 17
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By Jeremiah Sears
red tiles worn copper warm grass clipped stalks swell blooms & immolated pops —dry pine bark green clay pink fingers dull-yellowed pots gray-choked sky lime-feathered croucher drips crisp scarlet, sun weary, over an unfolding palm.
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ART BY EMMA HERDMAN
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Haiku
mad scribblings of the current in glass: the trees! the trees! gray sky and old fingers
By Jeremiah Sears
March 11, 2019 Tufts Observer 19
PA
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N
T OU
20 Tufts Observer March 11, 5, 2018 2019
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by
Emmett Pinsky
Because that’s what we do to them, the hands of the clock stopped moving. Rusted by pleas of the frightened, they began to keep time to themselves. The hands of the clock stopped moving, but the band was unaffected. Nodding along, they began to keep time to themselves. You ask: “Where do you feel the universal heartbeat?” The band was unaffected, nodding along in this room-soaked green glow, it’s just us. You ask: “Where do you feel the universal heartbeat?” They’re called watches. In this room-soaked green glow, it’s just us rusted by pleas of the frightened. They’re called watches because that’s what we do to them.
ART BY YOON SUNG
MARCH MARCH5,11,2018 2019 Tufts TuftsObserver Observer 21
After Isabelle Doyle
She who drew breakfast from spigots of honey colored marmalade, who coaxed me down from the crookshanked oak tree, who chewed mangled sorrel while she whistled my name, who spun me like a zodiac when i begged her to dance - always laughing. She wrangled me from my colic with frost covered washcloths, dozed to the wrinkled sounds of her old tv, sent me to bed with no dinner only to bring me rings of salted pineapple. She drank from empty milk bottles, slept on her side with the windows open, cradled my sticky matted hair in the thick of July, didn’t dare drowse in the hot vigil of summer lest i spoil my dinner with cherry candies she snuck in from the city. She needled a blue-winged moth into the small of her back, read to me from my own palm, ordered me to grow big and well, clucked at my father’s brow, laid out my good shirt just to take me to the creek. On our last day, She packed up my room and pulled me from the house, giggled as we passed through the cranky underbellies of cars, loped her muscles up and up the apple orchard just to laugh at the crows.
22 Tufts Observer March 11, 2019
Not My Mother
By Jess O'Flanigan
ART BY BRIGID CAWLEY
Do bees panic when they find themselves trapped in their own honey? Do you think they scream and flutter their wings?
Or do they stay in amber graves because the yellow of their kin shelters them in their food well enough to not care?
Do bees panic? Does the thick hive mist of activity count for honey? Does their maniacal, winged flurry and buzz answer your question?
By Andrew Yang
Hive MInd Hive MInd Hive MInd Hive MInd March 11, 2019 Tufts Observer 23
[untitled] By Morgan Farrar Its rays were drawn out with a childish hand, touching so gently I almost believed angels were real Warmth only ever feels so good when skin is burning Red bumps and orange eyes It blusters through the windows with no blinds, no curtains Highlighting that one stain that makes my brown hair blond I long for that same sun that surrounds like a halo Bringing heretics to bloom like the flowers that feed off Sunlight, never straying too far from What’s luminous Gathering around this circle of light, our eyes can see once more And find pleasure that this feeling is not simply a mirage The only comfort I find is in the same sun that touches us both Oddly reassuring, however it’s twisted doesn’t matter I know I’m not the only one who feels this same warmth. An ode to those living, I strive towards the sun’s light And believe that my one selfish request can be granted For your sun to never go out
24 Tufts Observer MarcH 11, 2019
ART BY Y OON SUNG
I have snails on my heart and they leave slime trails all over my ventricles and suction to the insides of my aorta. Although they don’t have any feet, the feeling of them crawling around in tiny paths is like constantly being tickled while I breathe. Tide pools form where my blood pumps out like a terrarium. I like to pick at them like scabs until they fall off with a satisfying pop as they unsuction from my capillaries and fall to the depths of my stomach. My heart is a rock in the harbor, and sometimes it can feel alright. To be where there are protective sheets of green algae or particularly smooth parts of the external muscle. But sometimes there are barnacles with edges so thin I do not notice they are lodged in me until lines of red stream like little blood worms. There are parts of my heart where the tide has gone in and out so many times that it darkened in color and started to wrinkle. And sometimes I stand on the rocks for too long and when I turn around I realize that the tide has come in too deep and I can’t swim back. I have snails on my heart and they leave slime trails all over my ventricles and suction to the insides of my aorta. Although they don’t have any feet, the feeling of them crawling around in tiny paths is like constantly being tickled while I breathe. Tide pools form where my blood pumps out like a terrarium. I like to pick at them like scabs until they fall off with a satisfying pop as they unsuction from my capillaries and fall to the depths of my stomach. My heart is a rock in the harbor, and sometimes it can feel alright. To be where there are protective sheets of green algae or particularly smooth parts of the external muscle. But sometimes there are barnacles with edges so thin I do not notice they are lodged in me until lines of red stream like little blood worms. There are parts of my heart where the tide has gone in and out so many times that it darkened in color and started to wrinkle. And sometimes I stand on the rocks for too long and when I turn around I realize that the tide has come in too deep and I can’t swim back. I have snails on my heart and they leave slime trails all over my ventricles and suction to the insides of my aorta. Although they don’t have any feet, the feeling of them crawling around in tiny paths is like constantly being tickled while I breathe. Tide pools form where my blood pumps out like a terrarium. I like to pick at them like scabs until they fall off with a satisfying pop as they unsuction from my capillaries and fall to the depths of my stomach. My heart is a rock in the harbor, and sometimes it can feel alright. To be where there are protective sheets of green algae or particularly smooth parts of the external muscle. But sometimes there are barnacles with edges so thin I do not notice they are lodged in me until lines of red stream like little blood worms. There are parts of my heart where the tide has gone in and out so many times that it darkened in color and started to wrinkle. And sometimes I stand on the rocks for too long and when I turn around I realize that the tide has come in too deep and I can’t swim back. I have snails on my heart and they leave slime trails all over my ventricles and suction to the insides of my aorta. Although they don’t have any feet, the feeling of them crawling around in tiny paths is like constantly being tickled while I breathe. Tide pools form where my blood pumps out like a terrarium. I like to pick at them like scabs until they fall off with a satisfying pop as they unsuction from my capillaries and fall to the depths of my stomach. My heart is a rock
N E O S P O R I N By Tessa Abedon
MARCH 11, 2019 Tufts Observer 25
By May Hong
carp in the bathtub my ayi goes to the qiao yi yuan wet market every day, humming. all the vendors have long-standing nicknames: a-mak, tooth-gap, checkers. the sound of her collapsible shopping cart jingling back home—god knows about those worn wheels. growing up i never wanted to go. in english school, i learned shopping was done in white shiny aisles, plastic sheens and plastic smiles with no eye contact. cold enough for a sweater even though it’s 35°c outside. i did not learn the slick floors, blood, tracked- dirt and dialects. i did not know how to haggle for the best muddy bundle, or dried dong quai i did not like the sweat and smell of bodies, whole— never halved, drawn, or quartered or Saran’d—bodies brought home, breathing. remembering her veiny and practiced hands placing choy sum, leeks, (no eggplants today) in the sink, letting the water run brown; letting the carp slip into the bathtub, where it would stay till a half hour prior to dinner, and no sooner. later my chopsticks would prick through
26 Tufts Observer MARCH 11, 2019
ART BY KAREN RUIZ
You taught me how to eat a crab from start to finish, how to disassemble its body, systematically, keeping its shell mostly intact; how to plant the smoother, rounder seeds of summer’s lychee— for when you come home déng nǐ huí jiā— even if it takes 20 more summers; though I later learned that the seeds are generally hybridized, resulting in trees that rarely match their parent trees and thus, may never bear fruit, and I realize I will never be able to say to you poetry, the lawlessness of it, we only know each other in spaces where language shouldn’t reach so I look at my pitchfork veins, celadon glazed; I make a thing of it as I cross the ocean again, hear in my non-mother’s tongue: just breathe, even if the bag isn’t inflated, oxygen is flowing.
Also By May Hong
Border
Town on H u aya n g Street MARCH 11, 2019 Tufts Observer 27
PHOTOS BY TATI DOYLE
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Deeply felt.
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Tufts Observer
March 5, 2018