CONTENTS 2 3 4 6 8 9 12 15 17 Cover Image
Danielle Colburn Stephanie Choi Alexis Springer Vivian Jiang
walking through the diag, hungry on the veranda Smoking on that Marching Band LOUD MURMURATION HYPOTHETICALLY YOU’RE NEVER ALONE Alexis Springer A Man with No Memory (a prose poem) Thomas Hawthorne The Language of Pigment & Color Magdalena Wilson Hyperesthesia Gavin Gao Jigglypuff Lang DeLancey The Small Noises and Smells Of Toes and Tongues Space Lizards Vivian Jiang
Editors Jenny Wang, Christopher Ransburg Editorial Staff Sarah Dougherty, Danielle Elizabeth Colburn, Sarrah Hakim, Mia Licciardi, Michelle Hoban, Natalie Steers, Myra Visser.
Layout Editor Giuliana Eggleston
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walking through the diag, hungry Danielle Colburn good morning, egg yolk sun over easy, seeping into clouds beaten into soft white peaks good morning, orange juice leaves no pulp, poured smooth and sweet across the tops of trees blooming into a freshly squeezed sunrise good morning, world, sliced and steaming, ready for me you are the first thing i see and my eyes are big as plates i am hungry for you
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on the veranda Stephanie Choi What does her body smell like when it’s embalmed with strawberry jam? Red-streaked cheeks under a lens, a seed on the corner of her mouth. A little memory dots her chin—a minute passes as she relishes that thought. Her body smells of yesterday: the sweet tang of strawberry as it crushes against her fingers. Her body, a strawberry, enters a mouth through the lips. Her body, a seed, circles around a memory. Her body, embalmed, red-streaked.
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Smoking on that Marching Band LOUD Alexis Springer Smoking on that marching band LOUD shouts a crowd of 420 members coughing clouds of valve-oilish shit and 1970s baritone bell dust. I know what you were thinking, you pot-head. Skipping class to sip my coffee elsewhere— your ears are welcome for my absence of crass brass sound that makes you glare at me. You sip your kratom tea and I, my coffee—kratom free because remember how sick I got? Praying to the lord of your home, tears squeezing out of my constricted pupils as I gave your merciless god everything I had “for hours and another hours.” Sorry, inside joke, but I thought you’d enjoy that one. On the corner of Green and Hill St. we wish we would fall in love again on that big green hill in the Ann Arbor Arboretum where you held my ankles in your hands and we tried to block out the sound of cars and listen to the whistles and leaves instead.
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On the corner of Green and Hill St. we try to block out the knowledge that your toothbrush lies in my garbage can and mine is kept in your bathroom drawer, just in case. On the corner of Green and Hill St. we exchange knowing glances. Inhaling. Exhaling. Looking and longing, coughing clouds, smoking on that marching band LOUD.
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MURMURATION Vivian Jiang How lovely the elasticity of certain things, the flushness of an existence right before its collapse; a roundness stitched from infinite edges, like those tiny birds & how they spill to black taffy mid-air, decide in an exhale the dance to which they will slice their wings quick against the gloaming as it undresses. Pausing for each shuddering comma to swell in thousands, to lick thin and breathless down its back like new skin.
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HYPOTHETICALLY YOU’RE NEVER ALONE Vivian Jiang On Saturday I listened to talk radio and two quiet voices discussed disowning the “I.” The weather was cold. The static was close and I pushed myself deeper into the car to conjugate verbs. A bird flew by. A vein unspooled. A very intimate moment swallowed itself and stole the voices with large teeth in their shoulders. I saw a movie alone about deep space and wanted to press on an interesting sort of ache inside me. A siren wounded some air in the distance and in its wake I thought of how nice it would feel to send everyone else off into space so you could be on fire all quietly, all on your own.
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A Man with No Memory (a prose poem) Alexis Springer Watches The Price is Right every weekday at noon in his emerald green recliner. Holds four remotes in his lap to change the channels—none of them belong to the T.V. Grandma holds onto the real remote. He plays pretend with his VCR remotes and T.V. remotes without batteries while we, the five of us, play pretend with our rotary telephone and Sesame Street Playhouse from 1980. Shuffles into his room every afternoon to remake his bed. Gets frustrated midway through and gives up. Digs out old checkbooks and receipts to “check the numbers.” They aren’t the right numbers, Grandma knows the right numbers. Checks them anyway. Stomps into the living room accusing “that lady down the hall” of stealing his money. That Lady Down the Hall who just finished remaking his bed and has loved him for 40 years gives him three cookies and tells him to sit down. He demands six cookies. Sits down in his emerald green recliner and asks what time “Abbott and Costello” comes on. Smiles at me. Tells That Lady Down the Hall that Chrissy is growing up. Asks what happened to Chrissy’s strawberry-blonde curls. “When did your hair grow brown, Chrissy?” “Chrissy” comes to pick me up at 4 o’clock every weekday. “Chrissy’s” strawberry-blonde curls have grey roots. Gets up and takes three more cookies while Grandma uses the restroom down the hall. Asks us not to tell on him. Little Carl tells on him. Goes to bed at 8 o’clock every night. The five of us are usually gone, but we know That Lady Down the Hall brushes his teeth for him. Once when we spent the night he tried to leave. “Where do you suppose you’ll go with a toolbox key at 3 in the morning?” Says he’s going to work. Total Petroleum gas stations haven’t existed in years. “Gary, go to bed. You’ve woken up the kids!” Says his kids grew up and he wants his ’78 T-Bird back. We pretend we’re asleep. We’re afraid something bad will happen. Grandma takes his precious toolbox key. Gives him two cookies. He demands three. Puts him to bed. Tucks him in so he can’t get out. Down the hall I hear him ask what happened to my hair. “She used to have such beautiful strawberry-blonde curls!” Tells That Lady Down the Hall he loves her. He calls her Dear and promises he’ll do better tomorrow. She tells him goodnight. I hear her mutter “I miss you.” She sighs in the kitchen and dabs her eyes, and I hate hate hate my straight brown hair.
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Language of Pigment & Color Thomas Hawthorne i. ~flash blue iris on yellow plain~ you know i am Danger & Death & do not approach me i am Paralysis with no antidote do not approach me without clear intention your palms face-up & crab in plain sight ii. ~flash rippling stripes of isolated flank to opposing male~ Today is not your day buddy back off. I get it: everybody’s here for one reason and that is to fulfill our mission that mission being reproduce and I hope you get your chance pal but that chance is not now, understand? Do you see these stripes? I earned these stripes when I ripped off your brother’s arm sent it to the ocean floor and watched the crabs that I’d eat for dinner pick at it amongst themselves, or when this guy I knew thought mating wasn’t serious business then learned the hard way as I threw him in the tide and
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flesh scraped/shredded against rocky shore and his chances of looking fly enough to attract somebody went from zero to none faster than yours will. I am Aggression and I do not fool around just keep swimming. ~flash kaleidoscopic greenredblue other flank to potential female~ I hope I’ve found you well tonight. These shallows are warm but if you find you’re cold, the coat on my back is yours and I will bend it to whatever color pleases you. iii. ~transparency~ wish Mom had more than 8 arms to look after 100,000 iv. ~freeze and flash into sand~ chromatophores tight regretting the earlier shrimp feast that has given you a potbelly any shark would kill for yet your eyes still graze the ocean floor for grub to eat after this ordeal is – (spotted)
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~bluff black and white stripes~ you know i am Venom & Serpent & do not approach me you could eat me you would surely die i advise you do not approach – (bitten) ~flash red and run~ Christ! Why that arm? I loved that arm… syphon engage blub bubbles swish swerve blub flash jetblack squirt blub ink run syphon run squeeze
~flash off relax~
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Hyperesthesia Magdalena Wilson the moon-white metronome of earth seeps and oscillates and in the summer once came home smelling of peonies and dew and the dense canopies where the foxes played and the music was unfettered and gorgeous it is early winter now we have aged my dear, I see it in your eyes whenever we really look so I try not to I only try to make you sing because I believed in you (him) like Abraham believes in God I only try to look pleasing to you and I think (mostly) I succeed perhaps an empty checkbook, a nearsighted fogged window, the newest gossip could set you back on this flight of furious passion (this one-way trip to the blackened streets and then back) but for now the timing will never be right you are not ignorant, my love we are forever and always caught between (him and her) we are tangled dream-catchers in love’s unyielding cat’s cradle the snow we flee finds its home here like the cat waiting with clinquant, patient marbled eyes I can see your name everywhere the spines of books – gross little rodent organs spleens lining the walls diminutive blade teeth knowing – gnawing you’re smokey, occasionally, and I don’t like this how, does it really work? tell me I used to know I used to show some promise I used to cry on your shoulder so no more ivy angels or light nights could scatter our color like a vapid snowfall
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and you must remember that, the day we were art and the day I touched you and I know you felt something give and the day I drew the connection between Goddesses and memories both are formed from white granite by imperfect existences all along we are stuck in each other’s heads and you grin because we are both in a museum, on display for the earth to judge – which of us is dying? you tell me how I believe in Poets like I just glided into a ballroom at the White House and the world’s best liar competition is in full swing Poets are people who lie because that’s the only way they (I) know how to tell the truth to forgive is like forgetting, you declare – or was it the other way around... we are back to our separate heads now, whispering to each other I reminded you that we were once young and for that you are (oh how I wish) perpetually grateful I may be a failure because I cannot dine and exist by the side of our failure I’m a romantic because I’m on a one night stand waiting with red roses and somehow you were always a half step above that not content with my waiting, not content with your snoring your cadenced style is (some would say) too verbose I think it’s just right your form (some, yourself included, would be inclined to believe) is insincere you are completely sincere in everything you do you rust for reasons unknown to me; you are not ironic you are a widow of my demons, loose ends, No Children, and bits of sessions captured and forced onto magnetic tape when the dirty boy band was about to break up and all the engineers stood soldiers in a
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line at the funeral of one of their colleagues, each holding an American flag and a part of their dignity to toss into the casket, a single white rose slipping through darkness you are a truly pure spirit of the road in a way that I can only begin to understand and if I could choose to sum you up with one word I wouldn’t which is why, with tenderness peeking out of photographs you shook your head at and an almost insecure way of prayer, an almost innocent belief in death, you are alive This I do believe.
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Jigglypuff Gavin Gao Every summer, she’s an air balloon gliding across the sky’s blue canopy, blinks her big satellite eyes, watches our city like a faithful guard, her secret love for us lighter than a weebill’s feather, but precious as nacre. She’s no ordinary starlet. A warrior princess who has given herself to the spinning stage, to the limelight’s wolfish glare. Innocent as a voodoo doll, she’s wingless and without fatigue, soft-shoes across the forest floor on her buttery feet. Beneath that marsh -mallow skin, a whiff of pink smoke surges like courage. Such sweet nothing, the mixing of wine and spring.
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Every summer, her voice brings warring dragons to their knees, turns the galaxy into a jug of hydrangeas, the sun – a spider curled up in the mouth of a flower. She warbles famine and exhaustion, waltzes through the starry void of childhood without a tear. Won’t stop dancing until enemies melt into each other’s arms. Won’t bridle her voice until every heart on earth is a shadow box of glitters and sleep.
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The Small Noises and Smells Lang DeLancey the small noises and smells of everyday life come crashing down upon my head and wrenching my stomach from my ribcage vessel bowed long-boat ribs overwhelmed by each offensive color and touch i will lay on the rooftop and scream for death until the sky flies away and i can sleep
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Of Toes and Tongues Lang DeLancey i want to learn serbian with you our mouths and small sounds struggling, apart then together to eek meaning out of those letters we’d roll down to the corner store light like trees and speak fractured to one another, pretending we’d come from a place far more mystical than osthemo, michigan i’d write down all your misspeaks all my stutters give them names and stitch them into a quilt. we could be warm under all our ignorance all those things we said and never meant covering us and all the things we meant and never said
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i want to learn serbian with you and travel to western china so we can be helpless together
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Space Lizards Lang DeLancey it will be a new era of international espionage sending lizards into space think of how innocuous it will be, raining lizards in russia. each with special missions tattooed to their dewlap flap, and in chips in their tiny brains. and with itty bitty cameras on their backs to capture secrets unless they get bigger lizards it will be a new era of international sex sending lizards into space think of how innocuous it will be, raining baby lizards from the sky, well greased by interstellar money shots dripping off their dewflap lap. cum and go where no man has gone before cold blood can use the friction on their tiny lips and their itty bitty balls unless they get sexier lizards
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it will be a new era of international postage sending lizards into space think of how innocuous it will be raining lizards with mail pierced to their lapflap dew. we’d strap post cards to their tiny backs. and letters to their itty bitty feet to send messages. they won’t be able to handle packages unless they get bigger lizards
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