Triangle 2009-2010

Triangle 2009-2010

Table of Contents

Front/ Back Cover: Eze-Tergel Purevdorj 2,3 The Delicious Guise- Zhixing (Wan Wan) Fei 4,5 I’m Still Hungry- Natasha Kappaya, Voices- Luisa Hardy 6,7 I Couldn’t Really See - Alexis Leanza, Secondhand Smoke- Lauren Christiansen, The Claw’s Shadow- Meg Smith 8,9 A Stinging Loss- Cerridwyn Pruden, Dancing- Morgan Mills, Changing Currents- Sarah Gettman, Eywa Tree- Yeon Park 10,11 The Moon-Man Song- Charlotte Xiang, Fading Colors- Yuki Nakayama 12,13 Barton- Anoushka Millear, Dew- Jaye Melino 14,15 Whither Goest Thou- Cerridwyn Pruden 16,17 Sloppy- Ngozi Mogoli, Aging Rings- Emily Morley 18,19 Slave- Adeola Ajirotutu, Anti-prostitution- Ji-Hong (Stephani) Yang 20,21 In Memory of Paul- Anna Mantero, Abandon- Hannah Rody-Wright 22,23 Fresh Pears- Ruby Vail, Missed Connection- Zoe Chachamovits, The Face- Jee Yoon Bang, Two Cups- Caroline Cating 24,25 Ice King- Helen Benton, From Dorian to Henry- Sarah Zellick, Spotlight- Sarah Zellick, Handroots- Anna Mantero 26,27 Someday- Sirianna Santacrose, Merging- Jee Min (Ann) Lim, Fairy House- Anna Barboza 28,29 Color Theory- Cerridwyn Pruden, Sparkling Bodies- Yeon Park 30,31 Grandfather- Jaye Melino, Sage 2 Long’s Alcove- Zhixing (Wan Wan) Fei 32,33 An Attempt to Tip the Scales- Tessa Holliday 34,35 Chicken- Pei-Ting (Peggie) Hsu 36,37 Dream Street- Ngozi Mogoli, Heritage- Lydia Youngman, Manhatten Madness- Maha Al-Ghamdi, Bottle- Seungmin (Mina) Hwang 38,39 In Memory of a Poem- Kelsie Sausville, Two Perspectives- Jina Lee 40,41 Baked Alaska- Julia Riback, Hallie Skripak Gordon and Annie Speranza, Being Wittgenstein- Sarah Zellick, Deep Dark- Sarah Gettman, Flowers- Allie Epstein 42,43 Dirty Tub- Natasha Kappaya, Among the Shadows- Angelina Doherty 44,45 Volta- Melodi Dincer, Clandestine Nomad- Hannah Christiansen, Color Wheel- Hwa Soo (Kim) Kim, Falling Up- Tergel Purevdorj 46,47 The Tiptoe Hours- Lauren Christiansen, Piano Lessons- Lauren Miller, Gentle- Sarah Zellick, Flower- Ji-Hong (Stephani) Yang 48,49 Leather Bags- Sarah Hankin, Goodnight- Ianna Recco, Modern Avatar- Jee Yoon Bang, Coco-a- Jina Lee 2

50,51 Spilled Sugar- Adair Kleinpeter-Ross, Entropy- Hwa Soo (Kim) Kim, Three Bodies- Jee Min (Ann) Lim, Stoplights- Allie Epstein 52,53 The Picnic- Julia Riback, Hallie Skripak Gordon and Annie Speranza, Homesickness- Lauren Christiansen, Light in the Dark- Sarah Bower, Mary- Sze Yin Siu 54,55 Central Park Morning- Caroline (Callie) Winkeller, Two Front TeethTergel Purevdorj 56,57 The Mission- Adair Kleinpeter-Ross, Hello My Name Is- Celeste Pomputius, O Muse Me- Hwa Soo (Kim) Kim 58,59 Ode To Your Hands- Adair Kleinpeter-Ross, Steel Waves - Allie Epstein 60,61 Oasis - Ruby Vail, Indulgence - Mary-Elisabeth Moore, The Patterned Illusion - Claire Karle, A World in Disguise- Angela Dai 62,63 Mr. R- Jenn DeVito, Symmetry of Directions- Xin (Sherry) He 64,65 Captain Underpants- Hannah Haight, Marshmallows on Fire- Antong Liu, The Glowing Hall- Manusnan (Pun) Suriyalaksh 66,67 Reduce, Reuse, Recycle- Jane (Beatrice) Li, The Tape Sculpture ProjectPei-Ting (Peggie) Hsu, Jane (Beatrice) Li, Ji-Hong (Stephani) Yang, Seungmin (Mina) Hwang, Zhixing (Wan Wan) Fei, Flame- Natalia Choi

Zhixing (Wan Wan) Fei, The Delicious Guise, Mixed Medium 3

I’m Still Hungry Natasha Kappaya Oreo is soft i like to see his fur shine in the sun Madiyeh once talked about an ant pile outside said those ants were red Oreo just killed a spider i hope he eats it i’m eating chocolate—Luis bought me some our grass is green but Mom says our neighbor’s is greener my foot is itchy and it hurts i look down my foot is in the ant pile i step in it again not by purpose my foot burns i run to the lake if i get the house dirty Mom will yell running makes it feel good i put my foot in the lake it feels good

4

i fell Oreo can’t help me get out Sonia says there are alligators in the lake her and Daddy almost caught one Will the alligators eat me too?

Luis saves me. i dropped my chocolate in the ant pile.

Luisa Hardy, Voices, Digital Imaging

5

Alexis Leanza, I Couldn’t Really See, Charcoal

6

Secondhand Smoke Lauren Christiansen I spent the weekend Exploring your face with my eyes, my hands, my lips traversing across your rough cheek, while your soft fingertips knotted into my hair.

But the truth is I would have been content staring at your mouth forming a perfect O around a cigarette and breathing in your secondhand smoke.

Meg Smith, The Claw’s Shadow, Paper cut

7

A Stinging Loss Cerridwyn Pruden

quietly they lie in their marble honeycomb. a solitary wingèd wanderer creeps along the walls, his frozen catacomb a silent tomb in which the others sleep. the floorboards creak and he shudders as he reaches his own bed.

Sarah Gettman, Changing Currents, Ceramics

8

Dancing Morgan Mills Here is my secret garden, Shared blindly among thieves Shouting their tales But twirling in someone else’s Skin.

Yeon Park, Eywa Tree, Acrylic Paint 9

Yuki Nakayama, Fading Colors, Mixed Medium

10

The Moon-Man Song Jingyun (Charlotte) Xiang Upon the roof the moon-man leaps, His shadow drifts along; it creeps.

The fiddle in his hands he strums, There you’ll find him, away he hums.

His voice, a deep and wise clear tune, Serenades the big blue moon, It hangs on stars pinned in the sky, As he

jumps

jumps

jumps

to the next roof and by.

11

Barton Anoushka Millear

In the southeast of Australia there lies a farm, 1000 acres of brown grass and dead trees.

Travel from town, past the church with a congregation of seven and the petrol station. Slow down while navigating the bumpy country road; honk until the vagabond sheep return to their pastures. Turn off the paved road; rumble on by the sheep and the kangaroos. Wait for the dust of the road to blanket the car in red. Approach the white gate, jump out and swing open the gates so the car can roll over the old metal grate. Look to the right; in the distance, beyond the remains of the uninsured fence, see the herd of kangaroos weave through the eucalyptus trees, deftly springing among and around and about the hollowed-out, burnt landscape. Continue down the spindly road. Stop by the mailbox; pick up letters addressed to RMB 2293. Take the 12

right fork in the road; hear the wind in the palm tree fronds on both sides of the road. Rumble over the last set of grates; crunch through the debris on the drive. Watch as the road runs into red gravel. Pass through the last set of gates; anticipate release. Pull up in front of Barton, the bougainvillea covered farmhouse where the Millears have lived for the last fifty years. Wait for Darni to stop the car; escape.

Jump. Float. Collide. Pick yourself up. Run. Through the mulberry bushes adjacent to the driveway. Onto the concrete porch which runs around the exterior of the house, past the pile of firewood which sits next to Darni and Ted’s bedroom. Squeeze through the green wire fence meant to protect the vegetable garden; run by

Jaye Melino, Dew, Digital Imaging

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the tomato plants, through the rows of carefully planted greens and purples and reds. Feel your feet, long ago barefoot, sink into the watered down mud. Slow down; the cool of the soil brings relief on this Australian summer day. Take time to watch the mud ooze between your toes; sense the connection between the earth and the soul, although you’re not quite old enough to understand it. Reach the end of the garden; escape the groomed rows of nature; burst at the seams just as the garden would like to do.

Far from the house, from the chaos of cousins screaming, aunts cooking, footy on TV and beers clinking as they are toasted in stubbies, Collapse, fold into yourself, compress. Rest

Cerridwyn Pruden, Whither Goest Thou, Photography 14

on a bed of dried grass. Watch the sky float by, caressing the clouds, begging them to follow along. Enjoy the breeze meandering through the trees and the long summer grass. Take deep breaths; the ever-present staleness of the air is gone, if only for a moment. Listen to the wisps of sound breathing through the leaves of the nearby trees. Watch the eucalyptus sway to and fro.

Smell the ragged re-growth on the wind; spot the sprouting seedlings under the burned out shed. Feel the cockatoo’s loud shrill reverberate across the yard. Notice the contrasting sounds of the kookaburras, laughing and gurgling, the opposite of the cockatoo’s call. Sense the breeze, calming the land.

Slowly, sit up and put yourself in context.

Rise; drag your feet as you meander back to the chaos. Look back once; keep the image hidden, for no other person but you. Climb up the brick kitchen stairs, swing open the screen door and walk in; leave the world behind for another day.

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Sloppy

Ngozi Mogoli Sponge, sitting snugly on the kitchen sink, reeking of pineapple and ice cream sauce that used to be delicious.

Dirt, parading the edges of the mire rimmed basin in a sordid fashion, rocking the latest filth couture.

Emily Morley, Aging Rings, Ceramics 16

Dishes relish in the midst of disgusting dĂŠcor.

Spoons swim in spice flavored cereal bowls, while forks catch the rain drop drips of the faucet, as the crying pit in my stomach is begging me to cleanse them.

I drizzle the pineapple scented liquid into the sordid sponge and squeeze the foam into existence, readily armed to kill, and wash the alcove dishes.

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Slave

Adeola Ajirotutu

We could not run, we could not hide We could not leave the great divide We could not see to scream, to speak We could not hear to cry, to weep We were not here, we were not there We were not us, we were the air We flowed with life, we flowed and flowed Like great dwarfs bright, we were so cold Amidst the likeness that we showed We found ourselves unfree and old.

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Ji-Hong (Stephanie) Yang, Anti-Prostitution, Acrylic

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In Memory of Paul

(July 14, 1992 - Feb. 27, 2010)

Anna Mantero I gazed across my balcony, so chaste with new-fallen snow, when, harsh and black against the frost, alighted had a crow.

I grimaced at the omen though my heart stayed beating slow-his weathered quills held warming peace that eased away my woe.

I pressed a finger to my lips, recalled the words of Poe-but the unrelenting “nevermore” ne’er uttered from the crow.

I sank when he unfurled his wings.

I begged him not to go-but all that stayed were tridents laid upon the new-fell snow.

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Hannah Rody-Wright, Abandon, Photography

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Fresh Pears

Ruby Vail

Plump pears, golden and alluring, sit squarely on the table, framed by the yellow crescents of the bananas. These perfect pears: the object of my desire.

A trio rests together on the table crisp skin covering the sweet innards perfectly palatable, splendid, and in my desire, I reach for one.

But my hand grasps mushy innards through the membrane.

Touching them each, finding their deceitful dermis conceals gooey ooze below each one, I discover: too long by the bananas leaves me with rotten pears.

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Missed Connection Zoe Chachamovits A flash of brown hair.

The smell of roses.

A brush of silk.

That is all you are.

That is all you’ll ever be.

Jee Yoon Bang, The Face, Acrylic Paint

Caroline Cating, Two Cups, Ceramics 23

Ice King

Helen Benton We are frozen in this moment Of recognition And I look at your chest All I can see is a dark Deep red hole Gaping But most of all empty Except for blood colored icicles That drip like stalactites

Sarah Zellick, Spotlight, Collage

How? Every moment it gets bigger And now it melts across into your armpit And reaches your happy trail And it is a mystery to me how Your summer tinted skin looks like plaster And your left nipple is purple with frostbite The dark hairs in tubes of ice But there is not one square inch of goose bumps Because it is I who is afraid 24

From Dorian to Henry Sarah Zellick

Nothing more than the broken pieces of a shattered mirror You have smashed all that was left of me.

Sharp shards of dangerous life are all that is left; hazardous only to others, others who might try to piece me back together again.

But I can never be whole.

You saw to that.

Anna Mantero, Hand Roots, Digital Imaging 25

Someday Sirianna Santacrose Someday, the world will become a garden again.

Pangaea will reverse its steps The universe will turn itself outside in And light will only exist on the other side.

The time will come when Naked, fleshy bodies are beautiful And there are only stars in the sky Pears on the trees And grass under our feet.

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Jee Min (Ann) Lim, Merging, Water Color Pencil

If we could run through fields of corn And pick lilacs in the hedge And listen to the trickling of water somewhere far off in a fountain Would we ever stand still and think to ourselves, Is this too good to be true?

Perhaps a tree branch would bough out Creating large, dark leaves covered in blood.

Then a snake would slither near And in our ears he would slithe “Listen, listen, listen to the wind.

Let it take you away, Far away, And never return.�

Anna Barboza, Fairy House, Ceramics

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Color Theory Cerridwyn Pruden a shade of blue so serene smiled at her; mauve said hello; red, too loud, called her the names she doesn’t use but the color reminded her of that night now preserved in black and white. she hadn’t spoken to him since, or even seen him at all, but the blue helped her relax. at least, it was something with which to keep her eyes from drowning. later now, green pulls her back to a different place; vines entangle her in a warm embrace.

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Yeon Park, Sparkling Bodies, Acrylic Paint

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Grandfather Jaye Melino

I relaxed on my back in the downy, dew-covered grass.

The night, expansive and ancient before my young gaze, filtered down through the dappled clouds to alight upon my upturned face. The stars, glimmering in the dark as diamonds in the light, mapped endless patterns before my naïve eyes. My grandfather lay beside me, arms above his head, appearing ancient as the night and even wiser. His eyes were wide, surrendered to the night. The night noises filled the air, providing a soundtrack to our pondering as we studied our own universes.

We reposed outside my grandfather’s farmhouse, on the small bluff separating the red home from the road. There was no other view like it in all of North Carolina. “The night is wide open and ready to explore” as my grandfather liked to say—a night perfect for stargazing.

Zhixing (Wan Wan) Fei, Sage 2 Long’s Alcove, Markers 30

I would lie in my bed, curled up under my covers, the Christmas morning thrill of anticipation running through me. I would hear his methodical reliable footfalls first as he climbed the wooden stairs, worn from three generations of use. I would slip my feet silently into bunny slippers, and wait until I heard his knock on my door, then quietly follow him downstairs.

Though an impatient child, I would never ask to go any faster down the stairs. This was his universe, and I was a mere visitor. We would advance slowly, consistently, down the stairs and out of the screen door to the front porch. He would choose a beeswax candle out of the old wooden Bob’s Fish Fry cigar box that he kept on the railings and remove a matchbox. The match would flare in the dark like an aurora, and with the smoke drifting through the treetops to doodle against the night sky canvas. We pulled our boots and continued to the bluff and to the worn flannel blanket that my grandfather would lay out. In a cocoon of hay, cinnamon and beeswax scents, I would curl up an edge of the red cloth. There he would tell me of the constellations for hours.

His face would light up more brightly than the stars when he told me the heroic and tragic sagas of the constellations. Since I had been carried up the bluff in a sling, my favorite legend was that of the Phoenix. As it was my grandfathers’ favorite as well, I heard the story often.

We would reenter the house, hours later, exhausted and cold, and fall into our respective beds, returning to our personal universes before falling into deep sleeps filled with centaurs, eagles and mythical, valiant figures who had etched themselves into our night skies. Some nights, I dreamt of my grandfather flying across the endless infinity on the back of his fire hued, powerful bird, ducking and diving around the stars.

Even though I could have lived like that forever, spending the weekends with my grandfather in our corner of the world, 31

studying the heavens, life began to rotate and change, as with the characters in the sky. The brilliance of the heroes that once pervaded my childhood dimmed, and I grew up. My grandfather was my rock, the telescope through which I saw the rest of my inevitable universe, his position unchanged despite changing environments.

Eight years old, and I’m being dropped off at my grandfather’s. I hold a steaming cup of hot chocolate in my hands, made on his friendly, potbellied stove. My solar eclipse mother, contradictorily insecure and confident, sits straight-backed and motionless at the table, except for her twiddling thumbs. I perch on the stool at the end of the wearied, familiar dining room table, my feet unable to even reach the second rung of the seat, and watch their conversation.

“Dad, I know it isn’t the best option, but it isn’t my fault that you can’t keep up this house.”

The pill bottles rattle as my grandfather sorts out medication from the white containers on the windowsill.

“Marta, it isn’t a problem of money. It’s never a problem of money to me,” he says, placating. My mother’s voice raises an octave, and her mug begins to jiggle.

“You can’t stay in this place forever—I’ve put up with the rust and rubble long enough!” My mother tosses her head, and put her fingers to her temples, looking strained. Every time my mother comes to the farmhouse, this conversation happens.

“I’m not moving, Marta.”

My mother groans and finishes the last of her coffee. She strides over to my grandfather, pulling the bottle away from him and opening it impatiently, tipping two pills out and pushing them to him on the counter. He doesn’t acknowledge her.

“Dad, I can’t drive up here every weekend.” I see him flinch, and I become confused. Last time she had been inside the house was almost a year ago. “I have work, and soon Liz will have a 32

life outside of third grade. Now is the time to move.” Her caged animal hands appear relieved to be released and active when they open her purse and withdraw brightly colored pamphlets that look out of place in the domestic, rustic kitchen.

He smiles sadly, and moves the white pustules around on the black countertop.

Yesterday I turned ten. School days have expanded, and my nights have shrunk. Gone are the days in which I could go to my grandfather’s every weekend. My mother got a nursing job, and the beeping in her life from the heart monitors and alarms has faded me out, while the stars have dimmed outside the hospital windows. I haven’t seen that wizened old man in two months, and the change in him is evident as soon as I get out of the car. We walk through the messy house, and I need to carry my small backpack up the stairs, as the effort for him seems comparable to that of Atlas. I wait in my room that night, shaky like his fingers had been all day, but the nighttime knock doesn’t come. My mother comes to get me and she carries the pamphlets in uncovered and hands them to my grandfather. They are too slippery for his halfhearted, arthritic grip, and they fall on the floor where both my mother and grandfather gaze at them. The last thing I see is him climbing up the porch steps nervously and slowly, but all I can picture as I drive away is a nostalgic vision of him bounding down the steps in the middle of the night when I was a toddler.

Twelve now, and we have moved to the next town over. My mother enters the room with me when we go to him for Tessa Holliday, An Attempt to Tip the Scales, Weaving 33

the first time in six months. Books, a kettle and a snow globe clatter to the floor as she pushes them off of her chair. She is poised as if ready for battle in a dingy, dark, fighting ring. My grandfather is world-weary as she spreads her weapons on the table and forces him to decide between pictures on tri-folded pieces of paper.

My first year as a teenager and my grandfather has moved to a one window, sterile room in a pamphlet. The farm house is gone, the bluff along with it. I spend my time in brick buildings, in dance studios, and enclosed spaces where the wonders of the universe don’t have space to manifest.

Fourteen years old now. I haven’t seen my grandfather in over a year, though we live just two hours away. My mother visits occasionally to have him sign more papers and force doctors and drugs on him. My life is a planned sequence of events and he isn’t in the schedule. It’s my birthday and I haven’t even thought of him.

He is cut off from all of his worlds in a room where he can’t see the sky and has a phone that never rings. I receive a cardboard box in the mail, addressed in sloppy handwriting without a legible return address, but it is left on our shiny new dining room table and forgotten about. A month later when I’m looking for a lost shoe, I push aside my mother’s flannel “farm jacket” which she leaves in the coat closet. I find the box in the bottom of the dark coat closet.

It’s dusty and the tape is peeling off, but I tear it open, and a note in the writing of a third-grader falls out. “The night is wide open and ready to explore” were the only words on the white sheet, and memories of my grandfather inundate my heart, and a little smoke monster of guilt curls its way into my abdomen. I open the second box slowly to reveal a shiny, bronze, brand new telescope.

The next day, I persuade my mother to let me sleep at his nursing home. I am welcomed by a nurse who tells me that he has been telling everyone that will listen about my visit. His face lights up like I remember when I see him, though the radiance is fragmented by the lines and wrinkles in his face. In the middle of this perfectly warm summer night I roll my bed, and grab my telescope and 34

flannel stargazing blanket out of my bag. Leaning on his walker, he opens his door curiously at my knock. “Ready to explore?” I whisper to him, helping him into his wheelchair.

The blanket is bundled around him and I smell the countless nights under the stars surrounding me as we escape to a nearby hill.

I settle myself beside him—the midnight chill and the dew are like old friends—and I watch the brilliant reflections in his childish gaze.

The constellations rotate, and the Phoenix isn’t in the sky, but this night it isn’t important. He is with me, and it doesn’t matter what sky we are under.

Three months later, and I am dressed in black. His funeral is at the church, but afterwards, I escape to the top of the bluff outside of his red barn wrapped in his flannel blanket. It is nighttime, but people are in a neighbor’s house eating and mourning.

The phoenix is in the sky, I recall him telling me about it and my subsequent dreams of him flying through the sky on the great bird’s back. I am gazing into the distance, remembering his face as we looked at the stars, when suddenly, between the two stars that serve as the Phoenix’s back, a bright star appears and burns luminously above my head. I put my head back and stare at this light with the memory of my grandfather always beside me in the expansive night.

Pei-Ting (Peggie) Hsu, Chicken, Sharpie 35

Dream Street Ngozi Mogoli

My mind dances when my heart sings.

Its beatboxed obbligato accompanies my mind’s feet on its way to dream street, composed of endless measure.

I , the body in which this mind rests, will live to make my dreams manifest.

Maha Al-Ghamdi, Manhattan Madness, Digital Imaging 36

Heritage Lydia Youngman

I have dry skin from my father.

It cracks and breaks in the winter.

Blood runs into the contours of my skin.

People ask me why is your hand bleeding?

But I don’t answer because I never realized that it was.

Seungmin (Mina) Hwang, Bottle, Acrylic Paint 37

In Memory of a Poem Kelsie Sausville

They said to write a poem As those teachers often do Just write something that rhymed With a metaphor or two.

I grabbed my pen to write a name (A super place to start) I packed my poem with tender words Filled with soul and heart.

My loving poem would contain A very special tale Of dragons, knights, and magic And a girl who grew a tail.

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Though modest I must really say That I was rather proud Of my exciting poem And the people that it wowed.

And that is when it happened And I gave a giant shout For on the day that it was due My mother threw it out.

Jina Lee, Two Perspectives, Charcoal

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Baked Alaska Julia Riback, Hallie Skripak Gordon, Annie Speranza Bubble bubble bubble boom!

Splash plop zam sploosh!

It disappears into the water Nothing in sight, I crinkle my critical brow.

As the penguin slides into view The iceberg cracks and shifts and Boom boom pow! A diamond in the rough.

Sarah Gettman, Deep Dark, Ceramics 40

Being Wittgenstein

Sarah Zellick

I am crazy- they stuff me in the white room But only the insane have seen both sides of the drawn line of sanity So why then, are we shoved in little white rooms When we are the only ones who can solve the mystery.

Allie Epstein, Flowers, Digital Imaging 41

Dirty Tub Natasha Kappaya You are a hot tub in a public space— who hasn’t been inside you?

I can see you’re full of it: always steaming—even when I’m not around, always boiling when I push the wrong button.

Must you be so inviting?

Must you be so warm?

I should have seen that your hair was the same color as the black specks floating upon the surface of your lies, I should have seen that leaving your soiled waters would leave me cold.

Again I tried to believe in the murky waters of your ever-graying concept of morality, but instead of belief I found curly black hair.

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Now you worry that you’re losing heat, you worry no one wants a cold tub; instead, you should worry that I want to drain youonly then will you be clean.

Angelina Doherty, Among the Shadows, Carving 43

Volta

Melodi Dincer The hallways are empty and silent The lights are resting in their classrooms Isolated desks wait in neat rows For the excited, nervous children to come The morning bell is quiet but ready Fire alarms wonder if tomorrow will be the day To scream and shriek as if echoing the children “But not yet,” the clocks depict, “Not yet,” The doors open quickly, surprising them “Who could this be?” the clocks wonder aloud “Is it the children?” the desks excitedly inquire The lights glow unexpectedly Showing whose shoes now caress the floor Alas, it is just the janitor

Hwa Soo (Kim) Kim, Color Wheel, Pastel 44

Clandestine Nomad Hannah Christiansen

clandestine nomad, i know home is everywherethe scent of summer.

Tergel Purevdorj, Falling Up, Photography 45

The Tiptoe Hours Lauren Christiansen The afternoons of my childhood were always quiet.

Me sitting at the kitchen table with some chopped raw organic vegetable for snack, You in your room with the door shut and lights off, sleeping.

Those tiptoe hours from three to five became us.

Me moving around the house like a silk winged moth, You lying still on top of the covers of your bed.

That silent understanding still remains.

Me muting the television and going around with stocking feet when You shut the door to your room in the late afternoon.

Sarah Zellick, Gentle, Charcoal 46

Piano Lessons Lauren Miller

They started when I was six years old, with Heart and Soul, only the melody, not the harmonies, her ancient wisdom echoing in my ears.

I never understood how she could keep her fingernails so nice.

They were always perfectly red, bright autumn leaves that never faded; They looked so out of place atop the gnarled branches gracing the keys.

After some time I became aware of subtle clicks, manicured overtones, a new harmony transcending the melody, arboreal limbs tapping in the wind Her knotted knuckles retracted, and it was my turn.

Ji-Hong (Stephani) Yang, Flower, Pencil 47

Leather Bags Sarah Hankin I went through your old papers, only to see that you paid an eighteen-dollar electric bill in 1987 and that you got rejected from four graduate schools.

You had a lot of maps.

I wonder if you went places, or just wanted to go places.

You had brand-new, white leather bags in the back of your sticky, grime-coated closet.

They were beautiful.

And I counted your bottles of salad dressing.

There were 7.

But I looked around to show you the scarf I found, and you weren’t there.

Why did you have to die?

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Jee Yoon Bang, Modern Avatar, Acrylic Paint

Good Night Ianna Recco

The fog plumed through the gunshot Holes in the train window like a stream out of a kettle into an inviting mug.

A cold and warm cloud paralyzed My dripping face.

No feeling of pain, but no pain to Reassure feeling.

Up is like down when the world is sideways.

Confused mind, am I dead or alive?

My fingers twitched like the second hand Counting down until bedtime, when the Last thing I wanted to do was sleep.

If I should wake before I die, Please kiss me goodnight.

Jina Lee, Coco-a, Sharpie 49

Spilled Sugar Adair Kleinpeter-Ross

I sit facing you My fingers tracing the sticky crescents on the waxy table.

I have circled you so many times But now I stop, gazing at your reflection in the window Blurred by the glass Muted by the sounds and browns of the cafÊ My finger lingers— When you touch me Your hands are rough like sugar.

Jee Min (Ann) Lim, Three Bodies, Mixed Medium 50

Entropy

Hwa Soo (Kim) Kim Should I? Stick a pinky in a fan that’s on, press all twenty-three buttons in an elevator, drive a cart headfirst into an orderly display of tangerines at a grocery store, fling myself off a bridge, hole-punch two digits together, pull the fire alarm, and dive into a whipping mess of speeding traffic?

I am an infinitesimal life out of a trazillion.

The universe seeks chaos.

Who am I to go against its wishes?

Allie Epstein, Stoplights, Digital Imaging

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The Picnic

Julia Riback, Hallie Skripak Gordon, Annie Speranza Sun’s in my eyes the light blinds me and I drift away leaving all that I know behind the sweet tomato sandwiches in the summer time I drink in the sweet flavor and I am no longer alone

Sarah Bower, Light in the Dark, Paper Cut 52

Homesickness Lauren Christiansen

My toes curl softly around a spare bit of sheet.

Although I am almost asleep, I can feel the quiet skin on my inner elbow resting above my head, my bumpy knee a breath away from the wall.

I remember those nights when you thought I was sleeping, and you’d stand in the doorway and whisper goodnight.

My head turns a fraction of an inch, and I smell your laundry detergent.

I remember falling asleep to the sound of the clothes dryer, always tumbling tumbling tumbling into a sleepy lullaby.

But as I try to keep you here, you slip miles away, and my fingers gently touch the tips of dreamland.

Sze Yin Siu. Mary, Digital Imaging 53

Central Park Morning Caroline (Callie) Winkeller Sun lights the stage but the performers are still asleep Glistening sleek skin splayed, melted, across still-cold stones.

Brown stones and two invisible, undisturbed swimmers.

A twitch, stre tch collapse. again.

Muted quiet.

Background noise: bustle, honks, movement.

Tergel Purevdorj, Missing Two Front Teeth, Photography 54

Yet An unpopped bubble in the strangest of places.

The audience of bundled humans(early risers) forms a ring around the tank.

Upturned faces ask incessant questions from the depths of puffy pink or blue parkas.

Their stubby mittened hands grasped by raw slender ones.

Rocks within a pool within a park within a city.

So still, so quiet. “Do not disturb.�

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The Mission Adair Kleinpeter-Ross I have these objects before me Your objects Objects of God Holy White and Pure Like the cloth upon which they lie.

These gilded gold objects— A bible, a chalice, a cross Only the best for you God. A picture of you is on the wall Drawn by these heathens, These that dwell in this inferno Their brown naked bodies Breeding sin until I arrived.

I cannot save them.

Celeste Pomputius, Hello, My Name Is, Carving 56

I can only make them paint these murals White washed walls to conceal their pagan spirits.

I do not like looking at you, God, Drawn by the cursed hands of barbarians Even their paint And your face Is tinted with their filth, Their mud-brown color.

This humid hell Leaves you cracking And flaking apart against my touch.

But we know You are strong within me Holy Pure and White.

Hwa Soo (Kim) Kim, O Muse Me, Charcoal 57

Ode to Your Hands Adair Kleinpeter-Ross Your fingernails Are pink Like sand Your cuticles Dry Like the desert.

Your hands Smooth and olive Are the spring Mapping their way To my mouth, My mouth Is the earth.

Your hands They reach, They reach to find A blossom Delicate in the light Balancing on a Stalk.

My lips are also Lined with dew 58

Allie Epstein, Steel Waves, Photography

And your hands Your hands on my Neck Prevent me from drooping.

When your hands are still They are alive They are breathing The air Of the mountains The air Of the trees.

Clutching the black bark Wet in the rain Your hands Strain for the next branch: My collarbone Slender Supporting your weight.

I remember the first time I saw Your hands Nestled in the center of the tree Cupped around a purple fruit.

The plum left juice on your chin, A shine on your hands.

Your hands Your hands have left a shine On my heart.

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Oasis Ruby Vail

I want you to want me, to feel your love like the green-gold sun that glitters on the peaks and pours over the side of the desert dunes enveloping and caressing these waves of sand Good God, be my oasis in this desert land.

Claire Karle, The Patterned Illusion, Paper Cut 60

Indulgence

Mary-Elisabeth Moore Man with great hardship Was driving fearfully Down, with shaky hands On the wheel, to home.

Man peered thorugh the glass, Distrust in his eyes, Amazed to see such beauty In that notorious street.

The trees perfectly lined, The tall lamps brightly lit, And no ominous windows. Could This truly be a place of sin ?

Man had thought of driving This road once more. How odd That Man had been hesitant On visiting his home, but The road was not meant Angela Dai, A Wolf in Disguise, Charcoal To be driven more Than once. Man would find the road Bent by the second visit.

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Mr. R Jenn DeVito

Every morning and every night he took his dog out for a walk. I didn’t know his name, so I called him Mr. R because that name seems pretty neutral to me. It did not give him a background; it is like a name teachers ask you to call them if they want you to abbreviate a name that poses a challenge to pronounce. But Mr. R was no teacher – he was just Mr. R.

His chocolate lab was cute. I had seen him nipping at Mr. and Mrs. R’s heels since he was a pup. But Mrs. R stopped going

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Xin (Sherry) He, Symmetry of Directions, Paper Cut

on walks with Mr. R as the chocolate lab grew up. To me, the chocolate lab looked like a Snickerdoodle. Mrs. R probably chose the name Snickerdoodle because it was her favorite treat to bake when her daughter’s red Minicooper pulled up in the driveway after a grueling and endless road trip home from Ithaca College. The warm sweetness of snickerdoodles filled the air and lit up her daughter’s eyes like how the puppy did when Mr. R gave him to Mrs. R on Christmas.

Everything seemed to have a golden haze so the R’s living room was warm, fuzzy and cozy. Mrs. R ran her fingers through the puppy’s silky, chocolate coat and looked up at her daughter whose arms stretched wide for the dog and eyes twinkled like how they did when the aroma of snickerdoodles greeted her at the front door. The puppy turned away from Mrs. R, gently hitting her with its tail as if he was hitting the name right into Mrs. R’s head: Snickerdoodle.

But maybe with age Mrs. R grew tired like Snickerdoodle did and so she stopped going on walks. Snickerdoodle’s youthful nipping turned into yawns as he looked past the enticing, chewable soles of Mr. R’s boots to the cracks that seemed like an unreadable map in the pavement.

Perhaps that was not the case – Mr. R loved to walk for hours, Mrs. R may not have been able to keep up with the pace.

But I figured at least once and a while Mr. R would slow down for his doting wife and Snickerdoodle, but Mrs. R still stayed at home.

Then it dawned on me: marital problems. Mr. R took long walks with man’s best friend in order to avoid Mrs. R because 63

she started nagging him to much to do too many things around the house. Their daughter moved to a military base in Texas, eloping with her high school sweetheart so they could live on the base together. No longer would she come home for snickerdoodles and Snickerdoodle – Mrs. R could only send her a candle that made a feeble attempt to capture the magic of the aroma that once made her daughter’s eyes twinkle in hopes that it would wake her senses and bring her home. Mrs. R lost all control of her baby girl so she took control of everything else. She made Mr. R empty his wallet to add crown molding and marble floors, paint the walls with a façade of golden haze as if to create that lovely Christmas again. Mr. R needed his space and long walks with his most loyal companion in order to feel the routines of his life that gave him some notion of normalcy before everything turned upside down.

Mr. R and Snickerdoodle walked together, bundled up, heavy boots and paws thumping on the ground. Each step seemed mammoth and overbearing. Snickerdoodle and Mr. R began to walk without purpose. They walked rhythmically and aimlessly as an entity, eyes glued to the ground and pained.

I hoped things would resolve between Mr. and Mrs. R because they had looked so happy walking together a few years earlier.

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I heard the other day the man’s wife died.

And I stopped making up his story.

Hannah Haight, Captain Underpants, 3D- Book

Antong Liu, Marshmallows on Fire, Photography

Manusnan (Pun) Suriyalaksh, The Glowing Hall, Charcoal

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Lit Board Helen Benton Madison Brown Lauren Christiansen Julia Doyle Jaye Melino Lauren Miller Murielle O’Brien KaraLin Pintye-Everett Katherine Vail Harriet Zucker Anoushka Millear (Editor) Todd Matthew (Faculty)

Natalia Choi, Flame, Folk Sculpture

Jane (Beatrice) Li, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Mixed Medium 66

Art Board Meryll Grace Castro Angela Dai Zhixing (Wan Wan) Fei Pei-Ting (Peggie) Hsu Hwa Soo (Kim) Kim Seungmin (Mina) Hwang Jia Lee Jina Lee Jane (Beatrice) Li Che-Hsuan (Sherry) Lin Yeon Park Cerridwyn Pruden Yi-Chen (Mayan) Wu Ji-Hong (Stephani) Yang Pei-Ting (Peggie) Hsu, Jane (Beatrice) Li, Seungmin (Mina) Hwang, Ji-Hong Jee Min (Ann) Lim (Editor) Yang, and Zhixing (Wan Wan) Fei, Nicole Hapeman (Faculty) The Tape Sculpture Project, Tape _______________________________________________________ Triangle is a student-run art and literary magazine that publishes student and faculty work. The magazine seeks to balance excellence and diversity. _______________________________________________________

This year, Triangle is using FSC certified paper. Forest Stewardship Council is an independent and non-profit organization supporting responsible management of the world’s forests. For more information, please visit www.fsc.org _______________________________________________________

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