Comma Issue 2

the comma

spring 2018

MARY MAGDALENE’S LEGACY ANNE MARIE WARD

JACKIE CHIN

Mary Magdalene’s death broke the hearts of a few. That much can be assumed, even though that was not covered in the local papers of the time. All the headlines read, “Hunlock Creek Infant Drowns in Rain Barrel,” or something to that effect. On July 11th, 1953, at 7:30 pm, Mary drowned in a washtub that her family kept beside the porch to collect rainwater for their vegetable garden. She was eighteen months old.

In the hours before her death, she and the rest of the Hassaj family—pronounced HASS-eye—spent the afternoon swimming at Moon Lake, near Lake Silkworth in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. Upon returning home for the day, the family went inside to change into dry clothes. Soon, Mary’s mother, Mrs. Jacob Hassaj, realized that her baby was missing. After Mary did not come when called, the family began a search and found her unconscious body in the washtub.

They rushed to the nearby summer home of Dr. Rudolph Martin, but because he wasn’t home, Dr. Lewis B. Thomas was summoned from his neighboring house to treat the toddler. The doctor and two Lehman County police officers attempted to resuscitate the child, but to no avail.

The county coroner ruled the cause of death as accidental drowning. The funeral was held the following Tuesday in Sacred Heart Slovak Catholic Church.

Aside from her parents, Mary Magdalene was survived by her paternal Grandmother, Mrs. Mary Hassaj, her maternal grandmother, Mrs. Helen Kovach, and her five older brothers and sisters: Rosemarie, Margaret, Jacob Jr., Helen, and Paul. This is all the papers revealed of the tragedy, and many of the stories used the same phrasing to describe the events that transpired, as they were probably owned by the same parent company.

Some details were too complex to report. The papers didn’t have a follow-up story on the family’s mourning process or weekly installments detailing their stages of grief. They did no research on how trauma trickles down generations, warping timelines and worldviews—they showed no minds dented under a sudden blow, no renderings of the Hassaj family’s broken hearts.

My mother is a Hassaj—she even kept it as her middle name after marriage. She was born on the last day of August in 1959, six years after the drowning. She, too, was named Mary, like her mother, paternal grandmother, and her late older sister, baby Mary Magdalene.

Some of the things that the papers didn’t cover: My mother says that her parents never talked of it, really. The drowning. And I wonder what their silence said about its effects—how Mary Magdalene’s untimely death changed the workings of the Hassaj family, and how this pain seeped across decades.

My grandmother never brought it up unless pestered. My mom believes that she was the one who found Mary Magdalene. When asked, all my grandmother would comment was that, “Mary was so big for her age. I remember that her coffin seemed so big.” And that was that, a big baby coffin. It also slipped out that Mary Magdalene died because when she fell off the porch, the weight of her little body crushed her windpipe.

My grandmother never liked to talk about it, but she kept clippings from three different local papers. She neatly cut them out, and pressed them into a photo album.

No one ever tossed them. The clippings still exist nearly seventy years later, yellowed and thin.

I don’t know if I understand my grandmother, my Baba (from the Polish word for grandmother, babcia). She was devout as all hell, often had a rosary. She crocheted beautiful brown and orange blankets. She was a woman who was sometimes bitter: she once beat my mother with a cat-o-nine-tails as punishment for refusing to get on the school bus, leaving red welts on my mom’s legs, for all her classmates to see. But Baba was also loving, and never blamed my Aunt Helen for the death of Mary Magdalene, even though there were whispers that she was supposed to be watching her baby sister. My Baba died shortly before my younger brother was born.

My mother never asked her dad about it, and he never mentioned it. He drank a lot, but her parents fought about that privately. Never while my mother was in the room. The drinking still gave him ulcers.

Was it the immigrant culture?

That part of Pennsylvania was coal-mining country, full of blue-collar Eastern Europeans whose villages were sliced and diced during and in-between the Wars. Before he developed black lung, my grandfather was a coal miner. Then he made cabinets.

It was cultural, here, to have a church on every other corner with a bar in between. My grandfather frequented the bars, and gambled in them. Sometimes he won, sometimes he lost: never much either way. My mom would sit with him at the bar, as a child, drinking soda and eating chips as he drank whiskey and played cards.

Still, he was an always-mellow drunk. He enjoyed making wine and had no teeth. He made delicate crosses out of palm leaves on Palm Sunday to be tucked under your mattress for a year of safety.

He died in 1989 from a massive heart attack. Baba found him next to the bed after returning from walking the dog. Rosemarie called my mom in Manhattan, and my mother packed her stuff and headed home to bury her father. Her boss called a car service, and she tried to not cry behind dark sunglasses.

I’m confused about Mary Magdalene’s death. I’m struck by its significance and banality. Mary Magdalene was probably too young to have a proper consciousness, too young to know her namesake, just too young… But her death changed things; I am sure of it. I knew nothing before her death. Neither did my mother. But I wonder how they felt. I wonder about their pain and how it passed down.

I wonder who Mary Magdalene would’ve been. Would I be here if she was?

10

SEASONAL DEPRESSION: A SERIES OF HAIKUS OLIVIA LUCAS Winter Laying in my bed all I want are Oreos but the store is far.

Spring April showers bring me a dry spell. Weather is nicer than most men.

Summer His tan arms make me weep. There is no hope for us; I check out today.

Fall The leaves are dying with them my diet and will to shave my legs.

EMILY DAVANCENS

ON THE NYBG KATHRYN HORNYAK

The day I went to the Botanical Garden for the first time, New York City was experiencing a heatwave. Most leaves had fallen off most trees, save for a spectacular few. The air felt so saturated with oxygen that I could only take deep breaths, the mid-day sunlight soft and unseasonably warm on our shoulders. Kylie was leaving next semester and there was truly no one else I wanted to be there with than her. We shared a playful joy in the ability of trees and shrubs and roses to create themselves that I would have been embarrassed to share with most others. I stared at the smooth white curve of the greenhouse, stark against the sky, framed by colors that should not have existed in November, and thought about how it must have looked the same in 1890. I understand the appeal of sprawling English gardens and of keeping plants inside. I understand the Transcendentalist attachment to nature and I understand the Victorian impulse to contain it.

ESME BLEECKER-ADAMS

I want to run across a stretch of grass so green that you can smell it until I run out of breath and collapse in laughter with you. I want to climb the rocks at the very bottom of the stream, at the very edge of the forest, to look back on the panorama of miles that trailed behind our shoulders on the way there. As with most museums, I want to be let in the gates that say Do Not Enter just to understand how they sustain a miracle. I want to feel that much peace and that much possibility every day of my life.

IMPRESSIONS ERIN KIERNAN

No one knows that vinyl is edible.

It makes sense to listen to it; you can preserve its sound, But you can only taste it once.

I prefer tongue to drum, and so I eat my records.

The first one I ever ate was Borodin Prince Igor The sweetest dish I’ve ever tried.

The vinyl splintered and tore at my gums Until I minced it down to filaments.

It slipped through my throat like pulp, And I felt like a queen.

I don’t have a worldly palate, But I know exactly where that dish came from.

Not Russia, not Polovtsia, But my nameless motherland where I am Queen, A place I’ve only seen in that tapestry on my grandmother’s wall And only felt in my heart.

I’m not one for temperance, So I ate that record in one sitting.

I can’t taste it again, But I still and will always know that I am The Queen.

MICHAEL APPLER

11

I loved you with all the colors of the world –

what

suddenly

matters.

How easy it is to love things of beauty, How selfish

to keep them to ourselves.

Loving you was so simple.

It’s funny

what you remember

in the wake of After.

It’s funny

Burning burning red, Drowning drowning blue,

Happy, simple yellow.

Like the way a lover learns to let go.

Like the way the wind carries the promise of rain,

I fell open the same way A novel reveals itself to the reader, Gently, quietly Softly, Without noise but still swirling with words –

I told you secrets and you understood.

I would have served you all my life.

My secret pal,

my beloved queen,

Eager to please, ready for anything.

You were my favorite,

enchanted and

exquisite.

I doted on your wheelchair like a servant at your throne,

You were my queen.

HER HIGHNESS MARY ANN BRIELLE INTORCIA

Those stupidly short years – a decade-and-then-some —

Soaring over the world that so desperately needed you it held you captive to the ground.

I don’t know why I see you in aviator goggles, Trading your gown for a pilot’s vest (and looking just as regal),

I don’t know why I imagine you in some far-off kingdom,

drinking wine and flirting with the lords.

I don’t know why I expect you to return.

Gentlest love of my life,

Your Highness,

Will never be enough, And I was a foolish combination of selfish and blind

But those were my happiest days – How lucky I am To have had something to lose –

How heavy I am with the weight of your loss.

Nothing was enough – Sixteen years

I was not enough, I know –

In the garden I grew flowers with the seeds of my apology but it wasn’t enough –

Sorry for being sixteen and stupid, Sorry for being so sad all the damn time, Sorry for the swearing and the yelling and the

fighting, Sorry for the family that cannot build a bridge over the

earthquake that has split between them, Sorry for the family that cannot gather under the umbrella of

loss when the storm of grief rolls in, Sorry for the sickness that ravaged my mind and made me impossible, I’m sorry nobody spoke at your funeral, Didn’t they know that was the least they could offer their queen – I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

I am sorry.

There is nothing that can justify that.

Nobody spoke at your funeral.

I wonder who you’d see in me now.

The stumbling servant without her queen, trying desperately to be her own royal – but the crown doesn’t fit.

Nothing quite fits anymore,

now that you’re gone.

So beyond in a world shackled to the ground.

You

were always

endless

that

What is the protocol for a loss so unremitting –

How does a kingdom

mourn the ruler

it never deserved –

way.

Even the flowers bowed to you when you passed, Aware of the true rose among them.

The sun smiled down on you Because it knew it’d found an equal, Someone just as bright as she, Someone who brought light to the earth on the rainy days when she couldn’t reach.

You were so cherished.

Your reign was so, so short.

Sitting together at every dinner The soft wheeze of your breaths

Your aviator sunglasses – a pilot, you wanted to be a pilot – The softness – the coldness – Of your hands, Like finely worn paper The warmth of your castle And the peace of the trees, Like soldiers standing guard.

You were all the stars I could finally see Now that I was out of the city – You were the long stretch of highway on the way home – You were always endless

that way, Infinite in a world defined by limits,

CARLA DE MIRANDA

I won’t think of it.

If you are happier without me –

But as a grandmother –

Not as a warrior,

beyond.

I love you with all the colors of the world:

Swirling twirling pink, Warm nostalgic green, Endless, endless white, From our quiet, tender beginning To the stretches of beyond,

Grandma,

And painted churches at her easel by the window.

As my secret pal, my bestest friend, who sang Que Sera, Sera

Not as a queen or a leader or a pilot,

I would send a message that I love you –

Your Highness,

And if I knew your kingdom’s name I’d send an envoy to tell you

everything.

How the castle is faring in your absence

How the other servants hush about me

The way my chest collapses at the sight of this particular boy

How I had to change my hair to change who I am The decisions that split me in half and half again

How I wish you’d come home,

I want you home,

More than anything I want you home, If I could I would send an envoy and

I’d attach a message for you to come

home.

But perhaps you are the ruler of some other realm now,

Well,

If you find solace in the unfamiliar, If you find peace in the life of somebody else,

In some foreign ballroom by the coast.

Dancing the way you used to,

(even without me)

I don’t know why I imagine you singing and laughing

WELCOME BACK JENNIE KIM

i was told that sentimentality is a form of vulnerability and that vulnerability is synonymous to weakness. my parents did not want a weak child. i distinctly remember my mother tell me that nothing is worse than someone or something hold you back in efforts for me to dream bigger to move out of my current environment. i realize that they did not want someone like me. a true robot, down to the dot. i disagree with their claims—only to refer them to their statement that sentimentality is a form of weakness. i call it tact. i have systematically reprogrammed myself to forget events that hold no significance in my life or emotions that deem me a burden. my emotional queue has filled up. i must delete ‘fear’. are you sure you want to delete? i press ‘yes’. i live my day-to-day life without fear—many people like that about me. this causes relationships and bonds. i, now, have friends. i never had that many friends before. friends are nice and they provide background noise for my thoughts. these thoughts never go away, but they’re pushed to the back of my head. i realized, though, that i am not the lead role, but more of an extra. i am fine with that because i have realized my relationship queue is almost full. i rush home and work on my ‘trust’. labelling trust as a burden, i choose to delete. are you sure you want to delete? i press ‘yes’. i have realized that using my relationship queue has made my parents angry. they want to shape me into the person they want me to be therefore i reduce the amount of relationships i have accumulated. i realized that i am unhappy however i will get over it. i have determined i did not trust them that much anyways. i have realized that i am “happy” with the way i am built. i have made some modifications to insure that i become the best version of myself. i have deleted ‘disgust’, ‘surprise’, and ‘anticipation’. are you sure you want to delete? i press yes. this has transformed me into a ‘chill girl’. i don’t really care for becoming the chill girl because i have realized it requires more relationships. it’s fine though. it’s not like i trusted them that much anyways. my mother has complained that i have a bad temper. i am here to support them - to not create problems. i am black and white. they are in color. i have realized that ‘anger’ has formed more problems than solved them. i choose to reprogram myself. i delete ‘anger’. are you sure you want to delete? i press ‘yes’. i show my creators my progress and they seem happy. i am only joy and sadness. i learned how to smile with my teeth. people find it convincing. throughout my modifications, there is only one person who has noticed my changes and despite my efforts to delete that person from relationship queue i haven’t. this is strange. i have never hesitated before. is this how fear feels like? i wouldn’t know. this person can see straight through my smiles and straight through my lifeless eyes. your eyes are a direct door to your soul. i wonder if that person sees my modifications. i wonder if this person understands why. is this what anticipation is like? my relationship queue and emotional queue are almost full. i am my creators’ perfect product. yet i realize i have never experienced joy. i wonder why i am like this. is this sadness? i feel a wave of “sadness” rush over me. i reduce ‘sadness’ because it is not something i want to experience. i met you accidentally. i realized that my relationship with you is weak therefore i deleted you. like a virus, you have persisted. always finding ways to crawl back into my life. you have infected my relationship queue. i have realized i want you to stay. this is a reason i must annihilate you. i run home to reprogram myself.

ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO DELETE? CANCEL. ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO DELETE? CANCEL. ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO DELETE? CANCEL. ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO DELETE? NO. ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO DELETE? NO. ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO DELETE? NO. ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO DELETE? YES. i sigh deeply and tell myself i am happy. you are a virus that infected my system. the next day i have realized that you are still in my relationship queue. like a tick, you refuse to leave. like a tick, i crack my neck. as i try to delete you, you infect my hardware. i fight to get rid of you, only to be forced to press ‘restore’. as i go onto the restore screen, there is an option to ‘restore from beginning’ or to ‘restore from a certain date’.

MACKENZIE HESLIN-SCOTT

THIS POEM IS NOT ABOUT ME! ERIN KIERNAN

We first met when I landed in Shannon You were tired You grabbed my hand and took me to the country Where the color returned to your face Where you looked more like the pictures Only deeper, Erin

Your eyes were sandy, Erin But every time you blinked you glossed them blue When you curled in the grass I couldn’t find you!

You were the grass You were ash, my lass You stood strong like a castle Bubbled like tea Weathered soft like a pebble Kicked like a fire So why why did you always cry, Erin?

I thought we were having fun But I pulled my sweater tighter And let you weep your weep Was it because you were hungry, my love?

Because you saw your brother die?

Erin, I marvel at you At the way you sometimes let the brogue slip out And cut the air As you cut your tears With a smile

this was when i realized that i am truly fucked. i realized that i have modified myself to the point of no return. i am only joy and sadness. even though i am two emotions i only experience sadness, never joy. i am not happy. i do not have a high relationship queue and i feel alone. loneliness was not accounted for in my modifications. i have become the perfect product for my creators yet i am not happy. i do not have the emotional queue to start from the beginning therefore i continue.

ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO RESTORE? YES. FROM THE BEGINNING OR FROM A CERTAIN TIME? FROM A CERTAIN TIME. i restart my program. you are still there in my relationship queue and for once i feel joy. then, unconsciously, i press UNDO CHANGES. ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO UNDO YOUR CHANGES? NO. again. ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO UNDO YOUR CHANGES? NO. again. ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO UNDO YOUR CHANGES? NO. again. ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO UNDO YOUR CHANGES? YES. FROM THE BEGINNING OR FROM A CERTAIN TIME? from the beginning. i smile with my teeth. for once, i believe it.

WELCOME BACK. 14

ESME BLEECKER-ADAMS

JEFFREY UMBRELL

THE CHAPEL OF LOVE JULIA GAGLIARDI

The Body of Christ lays on the slick, prickly surface of my tongue and I pretend to pray. I am a long-sighted voyeur, sitting in the second pew of the south transept, facing the east side of the altar. The parishioners move from the spinal nave of the Church in a long procession during the distribution of Holy Communion. My elbows stand erect on the back of the pew, an extension of the arm rest, and I bring my face towards the palms of my hands. My hands fold together and form the cross section of a roof, and in between the rafters of my fingers, I survey the line of parishioners and scout for boys my age.

In the middle of the line, a boy moves mechanically between two parishioners, following the simple movements of those in front of him. His shoulders are slung back. Sandy, khaki pants. Blue button down. Dark brown, my-family-sails-during-the-summer loafers. He’s got pretty good posture, too. His hands are folded together and swing below his waist. Each step he takes towards the altar is a swagger.

I push the Eucharist around in my mouth. There’s no taste. It’s dry, like packaged cardboard.

I play my game of prayer. I imagine holding hands and kissing this stranger. We would date for years, through college, and then realize we had to get married before our expiration date of twenty-six. Our families would watch our ceremony in this very chapel, and later, take pictures of our children’s baptism at the head of the church, reminiscing on our wedding. On our anniversary, we would tell our friends and family we attended the same church for eighteen years! Always the service at nine-thirty in the morning, and after, dousing the same stale drip coffee over doughnut holes at the parish coffees. Coincidently, without ever meeting each other!

All in God’s plan, an aunt would nod.

I hear my mother mumbling a quiet, quick prayer next to me. Her words mingle, coalesce and wed with a cloud of heavy, sweet perfume on her clothes.

My eyes are drawn again into my prayer-formed hands, looking through hand-made binoculars. The boy is next in line for the Holy Communion.

The boy, head lowered, holds his hands out in an open offering to the priest. I hear the dialogue play in my head. I​ ’m here to receive the Body of Christ.

The priest responds, M ​ ay the Body of Christ guide your soul into eternal life. ​ ​I watch the boy’s lips move to say the word, A ​ men.

The priest presses the Holy Communion into the palm of the boy’s groveling, upturned hand. I wonder if the cross burns a tattoo into his palm. The boy slides the Eucharist into his mouth. He turns away from the priest, and from me, and walks down the length of the nave.

I continue my pretend prayer. Another boy appears in the line, and as I observe his walk, his looks, and his clothes, the altar bread in my mouth grows more present. The size and shape of the circular disc, unfair and clunky in my mouth, causes me to rustle uncomfortably on my knees.

I wonder how I should consume the Body.

My lips cloister my secret act. My tongue tilts the pale wafer back and forth between the walls of my mouth. If I press the Eucharist between my tongue and the red, rib-cage cavern of my mouth, the wafer will soften in a lagoon of moisture, like oatmeal. Or, if the Body settles in the furthest reaches of my mouth, my m ​ olaris dens can grind and crunch the Eucharist. I like pretending that I’m eating a potato chip. I tilt the wafer against the inside wall of my incisors. I could break the Eucharist in half, an immaculate snap down the middle, with the tip of my tongue. The printed stamp on the center of the wafer allows for a clean break everytime. The cross looks more like a plus sign, anyhow.

15

the comma spring 2018

cover art: maggie ball

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF erika ortiz // EXECUTIVE EDITOR elodie huston // LAYOUT EDITOR abby wheat // FACULTY ADVISOR elizabeth stone // EDITORS megan crane / tatiana gallardo / alex merritt / cat reynolds / bessie rubinstein // MEMBERS mary alter / lucia bailey / kiley campbell / sophie guimares / alexandra richardson / abby wheat