The Gallery Spring 2016

The Gallery Spring 2016

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Volume 30, Issue 2 Spring 2016

Editors Co-Editors-in-Chief Heather Lawrence Lauren Murtagh Copy Editor Lily Gu Kate Sandberg Art Editor Katie Hogan Poetry Editor Alexis Jenkins Prose Editor Dominic DeAngio Social Media Editor Kate Sandberg Staff Editors Mallory Cox Patrick Eberhardt Kelly Giddens Lindsay Myers Lindsay Pugh Sydney Rosenberger Emma Russell Julia Wicks Cover Art

Apple

See the complete work on page 19

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Contents The Daisies Hall of Mirrors The Persistence of Memory Teresita Watering the Rows Ode to Syria Public Transportation The Funeral of my Childhood Pet Dendrochronology Playbills Tug-of-War Untitled A Poetry Class Part II from The Splinter Man Sonnet for Hip-Hop Dancing Crown of Mountains

Poetry 4 6 9 10 12 14 15 32 33 34 36 39 40 42 43 45 46

James Cole Jackie Keshner Emily Wynn Kyle Lopez James Cole Keabra OpongBrown Alicia Devereaux Ryan Onders Danielle Shulkin Emmanuel Chiappini Hunter Blackwell Emily Wynn Ryan Onders James Cole Brianna Little Emily Wynn Barclay Sparrow

Prose Con Dolore Chronomentrornithophobia The Clue The Hunter Station Evolution of the Chakana Jerusalem Alley Anna Standing Solitude Apple Discovery Beach Buds Kassandra Icarus Blood Drenched The Girl with the Flower Leaf Abstract Forgone Innocence Pt. 1 Truck Stop Jordan Forgone Innocence Pt. 2 Untitled Lady of the Lago Hidden Agenda Humans of New York Former Glory

11 17 30 37 48

Jackie Keshner Patrick Eberhardt Laurelle Tae Eun Ahn Heather Lawrence Danielle Shulkin

Art 5 8 13 16 19 20 21 22 23 24 26 27 28 29 33 35 38 41 44 47

Emma Russell Collin Ginsburg Beatrice Chessman Qiuyang Shen Kristin Passero Jena Gray Collin Ginsburg Beatrice Chessman Kristin Passero Alvin Chan Amy Nelson Katie Hogan Yasmin Abusaif Collin Ginsburg Yasmin Abusaif Alvin Chan Jena Gray Emma Russell Qiuyang Shen Jena Gray

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Spring 2016 Poetry Staff Favorite

The Daisies Where did these Cossack hosts renown Lead their sullen horses down?

In the pastures soft and green Below the long Baltic ravine Long beds of grasses, wild and trim That scatter sunlight, lately dim A host of daisies amid the dells Where ancient thermal drumming swells One to pluck and make her sweet Two to lay at a bridegroom’s feet Three are placed when calves are born And four are wreathed when families mourn Five are for the solid earth While six provide for easy birth Seven keeps the Devil’s breath But eight provide for early death When Rus, or Tartar, Pole and Wend Tie up their daisies to commend The shorter stock are simple lives Before the walking dusk arrives — James Cole

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Emma Russell

Evolution of the Chakana

Ceramic Installation

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Hall

of

Mirrors

The sheets of glass at Versailles beckon; they say they know my heart.

I am not fooled, much less fazed, but I step forward anyway. __________________________________ I. Antoinette Woman of the people, woman of the hour.

L’etat, c’est moi.

Pas lui.

Pas Louis.

The cake crumbs on my bodice look like fool’s gold in this glass, fitting embellishments for Madame Veto, Madame Deficit, Madame Morte.

II. Elizabeth

England and I, we walk so proud and regally.

Close the chamber door, I fall into no embrace; there’s no golden age I lead.

III. Cleopatra I did all the calculations right, checked my work three times, wagered reason, promised rhymes, sweetened words, softened kisses, painted my eyes with hits and misses so I wouldn’t be alone.

Now there’s no one left to hold my train as I marry the throne.

IV. Isabella We are the gilded faces of their optimism.

But after the wars are waged and the spoils taken, I think of what has been forsaken.

My soul is gone from his, and I find no evidence of their union, not in the way he holds our children,

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his heirs, not in the way he caresses his scepter, not in the strokes of his quill, or the embrace of his crown, and not at all in the way he looks at me: politically. Succinct.

I want to know him.

Why, I ask? I’ll never know.

Debilitating, sneaky love peeks ‘round corners until my logic retreats and I forget how to issue my edicts, how to wave at the masses, and I tell my lady-in-waiting that we really ought to switch places because he unfolds me, his map, tattered and patched, full of strategy, scratched, to craft his conquests, and he clinks me, his goblet, when he’s whining and dining, raising me to his lips for show.

His diamond, deceitful diadem glitters with my fire, but I silence my desires; I am not his queen.

V. Catherine the Great I waited my turn.

You rampaged and yelled ‘till your throat was raw, and prime for their hands.

If I can’t have a coo, then here, have a coup.

Your empire feels good in my hands.

VI. Victoria Mourning, noon and night.

As you sleep, you leave me in your wake.

Despite the colonies I take, the sun sets on my heart.

VII. Mary, Queen of Scots I suppose it’s too late to secure your forgiveness, and to offer some semblance of mine.

I count my plots on rosary beads, and count my days in hours.

I’ll spend my sparse breath and blood forming my confession:

How quickly I found myself undone when a lesser face bore you a son.

“Queen” and “wife” became mere words; Faces Two and Three were undeterred.

Girlish giggles became my lullaby, but I whisper, “deny, deny,” and I close my heart and bedroom door, and in my mind, I build you more. _________________________________ I’m at the end of the hall, and the beginning of my rope.

To my spectators, I give a scare; the fallacious glass court taunts me. and the mirrors lay in shards at my feet, and I, in shards, at theirs.

—Jackie Keshner

as the blade falls, the fact remains, I loved you.

VIII. Nefertiti You built me, and I built you.

Declare the people’s rumors true.

Our reign, vibrant, stellar, bold, brought us close and brought them gold.

Together, we redrew the gods; together, we two damned the odds.

I felt no ache, I made no plea; I was revived, not slain, by the Royal “We.” When our daughters ask, I give the truth: our romance whirled to the tune of youth.

But I omit the portion of the tale where my music began to fail.

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Collin Ginsburg

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Jerusalem Alley

Photography

The Persistence of

Memory

I swim in honey, then I am.

It leaks from my eyes, my lips, my fingers.

You tell me you can’t move, you’re stuck – drowning. I say me too.

In slick skin, we untangle.

Black coffee, honey on toast, breakfast delivered on a clean plate that melts into your palms. Mornings spread thin into sleepy afternoons. The sky melts, too.

I slink outside in waves.

The trees swim into the ground, upside-down and shoes stick to sidewalks leaving burn marks.

In the reflection of your window I see ripples of unfamiliar faces, yours and someone new.

The kettle on the stove shrieks thick mist Blueberry green tea air and black toast. I take a step back and everything is solid again.

— Emily Wynn

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Teresita Teresita and I met at my aunt’s Jersey Shore beach house when I was 17.

It was a gathering of cousins— a way to bring together mom’s side of the family to share gossip, sip Coronas, and laugh about childhood traumas.

Mom had shielded us from most of them, so my brother and I were newcomers.

We knew about the standout players: the Santeria practitioners (dad always called it ‘the hocus’), the former and current heroin or cocaine abusers, the two-or-three-time suicide attempter.

Teresita was a new face and name, in dark sunglasses and a toquilla straw hat.

Everyone else calls Teresita “she;” a conformity of convenience, an imposed self-sacrifice.

But I heard Teresita say that Marco Antonio is his name everywhere else.

His raspy and rugged cadence complemented a baggy outfit meant to conceal feminine curves.

Everyone looked at Teresita as if she were speaking in tongues, forgetting that they speak in tongues themselves at the church of the Orishas.

Their gazes burned holes in my image of the family.

Somehow, Marco Antonio’s the freak.

Later, Mom said that Marco Antonio goes by Teresita around family out of respect

for his mother.

— Kyle Lopez

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Con Dolore

S

By Jackie Keshner

he used vibrato as she played our heartstrings.

The velvety musical throes of her bass clef resounded throughout the auditorium. Her eyes closed, her eyebrows arched, and her breath came not from her body, but from her notes. They were composed long ago, but they were the vessels of her existence.

Legato.

Staccato.

Inhale.

Exhale.

We believed her, because it was not a performance. She took to the stage and pleaded for life with the desperation a high school student shouldn’t have. She wanted us to look away.

Instead, we were enraptured.

But now, the cello is packed neatly into its case. Or perhaps it’s strewn over a chair, the thin wood completely bashed in, for all I know. The music is in stacks, makeshift tables in her room, or at a garage sale for half price. It was just a change of heart, she says. She shrugs her shoulders nonchalantly at the thought of turning away from what was once the backbone of her life. We believe her, because she did it.

Con dolore, the music says.

With sadness. G

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Watering the Rows I think I will go to the garden with you I hear the tulips came in nicely And the bullfrogs give a misty cadence to it I wish I could have seen it more clearly Through my bedroom window And ah, you are so beautiful my dear Like this whole world This whole comedy This whole tragedy And I hope that you’ll go out tomorrow And maybe get yourself into a little mischief And ah, you are so beautiful my dear Like this whole bed This whole world This whole lock and key I hope that you’ll go out tomorrow And maybe get yourself into a little trouble Was it you that was watering the rows?

Singing that one song about the birds Or was it the one about the snow?

It was so sweet, my dear But don’t worry because I think I decided that this Would be the last room I would leave And ah, you are so beautiful my dear Like this whole world Like this whole bed Like the tulips that came in so nicely So yes, I think I will go to the garden with you — James Cole

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Beatrice Chessman

Anna Standing

Charcoal on Paper

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Ode to Syria

He seems to be sleeping, at peace

Comforted by his valiant effort

his fight the fight of thousands Sadly, he has been tossed

uncared for

washed up ashore

like the pile of laundry you said you’d get to

you swore you’d get to

but now, you just look at, knowing something already should have been done — Keabra OpongBrown

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Public Transportation Insect headlights glitter past, flit away to their Somewheres Songs play in your head, a violin bow Dragging Itself across the highway as you glide, It rings out! Vibrates in your sweet, airy bones Twinkle bells and candy chords, music sent from someone far Away, transmitted in waves that travel through dust and light and little shivers that plant goosebumps along your arms, All In A Row. Reaching through the glass, moonlight plucks a tear from your eye And paints it Down your glowing cheek You hurt with happy And night takes you home

— Alicia Devereaux

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Qiuyang Shen

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Solitude

Photography

Chronomentrornithophobia

W

By Patrick Eberhardt

alter’s eyes slowly acclimated to the narrow, dim entryway of his home, leaving the harsh, bright sunlight and cacophonous music of the outside world. His head pounded, an awful steady thud of cerebral percussiveness.

He looked at the small wall at the end of the entryway. Walter was startled. The expensive vodka bottle slipped from his hand, shattering on the linoleum floor.

There it hung, as if it belonged there, a cuckoo clock. Walter appraised it as the gaudy masterwork of a Black Forest artisan. The cuckoo clock was topped by an upside down, v-shaped slatted wooden roof adorned with a dark rod for a chimney, complete with a domed cap. A trio of doors, one at the top center for the avian automaton and two lower doors for what were likely frolicking dancers located below that roof. Walter wiped the wetness with his hand where the vodka had splashed his upper thigh, soaking through his slacks in a somber bon voyage.

Walter was petrified at first as he scanned the two handed clock with its golden Roman Numerals. Ten minutes to twelve. The fear quickly turned to a defeated mirth. Walter pitied himself, how much worse could his life get?

Walter fell to his knees laughing with resigned surrender. His head hurt worse now. The cure for his headache coated the floor of the entryway. He licked his fingers distractedly as he kneeled before

the strange interloper in his foyer. A sliver of glass raked his tongue as he inspected the three weights hanging below the ornamented clock fronted by counterbalancing chains.

“Where the fuck did you come from?” He chuckled as he asked.

There was no lightness in his humor.

He was captivated by the pastoral scene displayed below the clock face on a tiny shelf, two goats were butting heads almost playfully over a trough of water next to a water wheel. Two tannenbaumesque pines irregularly bookmarked the scene.

Walter’s hands cut against glass on the floor as he rose from a kneeling position, his brain worked slowly in the rational business-like fashion which had served him well in his fifty-plus years of life. It came to him as he connected the dots; it was Joe and Steve! Surely, his drinking buddies decided to have a little fun with him. He was almost positive he had never told anyone about his fears of clocks and birds. Almost certain, but he could have let something slip in one of his grayed out escapades with his closest libation swilling associates.

Bellowing, “That must be it!

Those bastards.” Grinning despite his throbbing temples, he took a deep breath as he began to walk past the cuckoo clock. The little hand of the clock had reached eleven.

As the cogs and gears of his mind steadily churned out possibilities with

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steady, efficient progression, a dark thought occurred to him. His own pernicious action could have somehow brought about the arrival of the timemeasuring oddment’s introduction into his domicile. Just a week before, Walter had been walking home from his favorite bar. A young homeless man had startled him. In his drunken stupor, Walter gave him a hard shove.

The obnoxious street urchin had gone silent and still after a hard thunk, as his head slammed awkwardly against a rigid concrete corner. After verifying the lack of witnesses to his violent mistake, Walter fled. He tried to convince himself that the man was fine. He had a strange nagging feeling about the man. The constant intake of vodka had kept that dire encounter from the forefront of his mind. The illfated demise of his temporary, potable emancipation did not help Walter’s anxiety. Could there be a connection between the clock and his discretion?

Walter stood still, his brain pounding, begging for release from his pain and guilt. He stood, facing askew of the clock, daring only to view it in his periphery. He muttered to himself quickly, under his breath, “You are being ridiculous, Walter! No one knows what happened. It’s fine. He was a bum; A worthless lowlife. Quit beating yourself up.” He continued this self-affirming litany quietly in a manic fashion.

The clock was less than a minute away from releasing pent up bangs and

tweets when Walter noticed a strange piece of wood sitting in front of his bay window near the front door. He approached it. It looked like some sort of low pedestal. It was only a few inches high. He felt compelled to stand on it.

Walter glanced back at the clock, it was about to strike twelve as he stepped onto the wooden stand.He was thrust forward through the window violently.

Walter’s senses were overloaded as he felt himself rocking forward screaming, “Cuckoo! Cuckoo!” At the top of his lungs. Banging, tinny music overpowered his ears.

He saw human-sized animatronic dancers whirling around below him. He looked farther down past the goats and pine trees and could smell the vodka that coated the linoleum floor, speckled with glass shards. His entire body convulsed in horrific pain as his mind raced in frantic desperation to understand how this could even be happening.

It was over as quickly as it had begun. Walters’s eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness of his entryway. His head pounded from the sensory assault that was the world outside his front door. Walter was suddenly surprised by the presence of a Cuckoo clock at the end of his entryway. He dropped his precious bottle of vodka.

The clock read ten minutes to

“ ” Walter stood still, his brain pounding, begging for release from his guilt and pain

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twelve…G

Kristin Passerro

Apple

Cut Paper

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Jena Gray

Discovery

Photography

Spring 2016 Art Staff Favorite

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Collin Ginsburg

Beach Buds

Photography

Beatrice Chessman

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Kassandra

Oil on Panel

Kristin Passero

Icarus

Mixed Media

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Alvin Chan

Blood Drenched

Photography

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Amy Nelson

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The Girl with the Flower Chalk Pastel

Katie Hogan

Leaf Abstract

Acrylic

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Yasmin Abusaif

Forgone Innocence Pt. 1

Watercolor

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Collin Ginsburg

Truck Stop Jordan

Film Photography

The Clue

by Laurelle Tae Eun Ahn

A

hard knock-down punch. My ribs clank against each other like chopsticks. Another guy, grabbing my feet, drags me to the edge of the cliff. The blood from the scratches makes a crimson path on soggy soil. All I can think of is a white vanilla cake, made of moist and tender egg whites. My birthday cake. I remember how smoothly it was sliced when the knife barely touched the pure cream.. I put my shaky left hand inside my pocket to grab my last bullet. But when I reached it, they cast my body, like a wet tree trunk into the icy water. In the silence, a bubble softly sits on my eyelash. *** Deep, lukewarm light permeates my fossilized eyelids. I hear the serene sound of water. An emanation from summer flowers touches my nose. Within the cracks of my view, violet-blue blooms among heart-shaped, fresh green leaves surround elegant hotel-style pool, made of white marble.

My hairs, combed and braided with garden-fresh fragrance, are laid on an ocean blue cushion of the pool chair. Two palm trees form a perfect symmetry and breeze away from the tropical sun. Expecting to find ragged skin, I touch my neck. It feels smooth as if wrapped by bamboo leaves and steamed by healing gels for days and nights. In the pool, three little girls lean against a pink tube and splash the water with their legs. A woman, laying in a pool chair, holds a cocktail glass in one hand and a book in the other. Where am I? I look down at a hotel key wrapped around my wrist. G

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Dendrochronology Do you remember when we lay beside each other, bodies warmed in darkness and our thoughts all cloaked in silence?

You asked about my words, or lack thereof.

I gave you more, not sure what words I said.

When I look back, I see the selfish truth you hid inside your question, buried deep within the oak tree of your voice. You wished that I would paint within your ear a scene of love traversing roads and mountains all for you. You longed to hear of how I was a tree with leaves grown just for you to tear.

Had I but used an auger, found your core, I would have said it all and more; I was. — Danielle Shulkin

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The Funeral of my Childhood Pet I found a shoebox buried in my backyard when I went out to bury the dog.

My small green spade punctured the decayed, fragile cardboard top and newly shaken earth spilled in through the crack.

The box was a faded, burnt orange.

The white swoosh had turned a light brown.

Orange and white blending together underground.

I placed my spade lightly onto my own wooden box and went to the garage to get gardening gloves then lifted the box out of the ground.

Brushing the dirt off, I lifted the lid and looked down into the box at small white bones, toothpick like in appearance. A rabbit perhaps, Or a rat.

It looked like a picture I had seen of an archaeological dig. The bone hunter crouched over the massive skeleton of a prehistoric dinosaur.

I could imagine the maggots crouched next to the tiny toothpick bones I held in my hands, examining each one as I did now.

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I put the box back in the hole, recovered it with fresh dirt, picked up my own box and walked to the other side of the lawn to dig a new grave.

There would be two brown patches on the green lawn. My father would have to lay new seed. A cemetery of straw tombstones in our backyard. — Ryan Onders

Yasmin Abusaif

Foregone Innocence Pt. 2

Ink on Paper

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Playbills See the blankness in her stare pass judgment As if I’m the latest redundant transformers movie poster Go forth my friend for there is not a chance Still I step forward and introduce myself like the title to a play Names just playbills to the eyes she remembers by A tangible prompt of unspoken judgment recalled upon the nights end amongst food and friends Past that gaze I seek to change her outlook Not an attraction to the gaze holder But a need to deceive the gaze itself Adrenaline fills veins as I convey The portrait of a man who understands Kanye and Shia labeouf ’s greater plan Banter exchange cementing my name Pinning my playbill to the wall of her mind —Emmanuel Chiappini

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Alvin Chan

Untitled

Photography

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Tug-of-War Slow and gut-wrenching, thickening, mixing with the open oxygen(Suffocation?) Time peels back, memories flash. It’s warm, slightly smothering.

Unorthodox- things never meshing up, hugging at arm’s length. A bit tight, but comfortable like a new pair of blue jeans — Hers.

Barren colored walls, plastered with rugs of lions, tacked with strange swirls of unpronounceable names. Indian-style sitting, wrapped in the bits of holiday paper. Sage citrus, swirling around the room, the fruit making the edges of sanity fuzzy as a wool blanket, wrapped to your neck, tickling your chin —His. Perfect balance of dreams and the sweat and tears needed to catch them. Sometimes, a trench, hollow and deep, too wide for a single jump. The width just barely brushing the the seeming abyss below. A sweatbox, soundproofno one can hear the fire ripped from the lungs, leading to Suffocation. Seamlessly, stuck in SuffocationWishing for Paradise. Where the days can be wasted away, without feeling guilty. The crushing weight of to-do list, the sinking rocks of stress, all gone, waved away.

— Hunter Blackwell

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The Hunter

by Heather Lawrence

I

am 16 and doe-eyed and the arrow takes me in the chest. A hot kiss spaced halfway between my collarbone and my first rib.

It is not a mortal wound but I fall all the same. Feathered fletchings sprout from me like flowers. I lie swooning on the floor, my limbs trussed wrist to ankle. A sacrifice to Eros and St. Sebastian. Wordless devotionals bubble on my lips, my lungs awash in fluid and ardor. Somewhere in between all the sonnets they forgot. The heart is a hunter too. G

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Jena Gray

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Lady of the Lago

Photography

Untit led I am not a wall flower, I am rooted in soil: wild, screaming daffodil.

The mirror stares, wideeyed and restless, caffeine sick and reeling. She says You are just paper fat, a house with white windows and no front door step. _ The day we met I felt my feet leave the Earth. You took me for coffee.

Your hands dug tiny crescent moons in my galaxy wrists. Porcelain skin, blue veins.

And in an hour, I lost you but gained an old wallet, picture frames. _ Back on Earth – thirty unread text messages, two missed calls, one long voicemail.

I press my fingers to my temples, write letters in ink, “be back soon.”

In the garden, we sink. Too much too wrong too long and too little sleep.

— Emily Wynn

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A Poetry Class long voices exposed by short hair green ideas covered in blue jean jackets How many interpretations of one poem can be made?

The only solution is death in the clear water of the tear of each word written.

The black drops falling hardly on the clean white page Dissecting the anatomy of the bleached forest A spiked fish swallows his head then points to the door But the fish was caught!

(Though it took some trying) The knife now digs in exposing the meaty grey flesh How to find meaning in it all?

It is in the half-second of first Feeling The Feeling I cannot place I cannot express It! Lucky even to realize I am Feeling at all!

So luck is to settle for contrived explanation based in religion or sex or life or death or divine animals or diseased mothers There is A Feeling in it but merely one subdued, an opaque understanding

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But a sequined shirt! Shining silver!

Sprouting blonde bubbling down a white jacket Bringing light to the darkness?

What the poet means I know not, But what I mean I shall tell you.

There is no clean understanding.

Emma Russell

— Ryan Onders

Hidden Agenda

Porcelein

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Part II From

the Splinter Man Here we go again Down the cobblestone, a wrack Tack, tacking, along Here we go again With a lamplighter’s switch To wake the people in their homes “Its time, its time!

The cock crows and its seven thirty!”

Boneshakers, bone breakers Give it your best shot!

Making that wrack, rack, racket Keep on pedaling down That cobblestone bridge To Whitechapel And, “Hey Boss”, there it is Like you’ve been there before Once we go around again Go around the bend With the merry Mary Quite contrary Down on Market Street Where the players Play their little games And the plyers ply their little folk Away, away, down the road To wonderland!

Away, away down the rabbit hole Where the world keeps Tick, tack, tocking along They keep wind chimes there!

I’ve heard them, its true They keep little pavilions And vermilions too Half a dozen daffodils Twice as many beds Of helpless, hapless Baby’s breath Knocking each other’s heads

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— James Cole

Sonnet for Hip-Hop The stoop kids leave their perch to find themselves.

Canary sun illuminates the late afternoon as A burnt gold El Camino gleaming at the end of the block Bleeds freedom, screams to these birds “I have your wings.”

They can’t resist its call, and flock toward then into The ticket out of town. The road rips the sinking Sun from the horizon. Depressed potholes Line the street like buttons, yank fluttering bodies to the sky.

Littlest one clutches hopefully to the upholstery, counts off Each spider web window and crooked screen door, A metronome to Tupac telling Mama it’s all right.

They won’t be home in time for dinner tonight.

The cat’s paw swipes them from the air and into the cage.

Locked in again, they warble sweet odes to rage.

— Brianna Little

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Qiuyang Shen

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Humans of New York Photography

Dancing I wake up to a thousand alarm clocks.

They bounce around the room, a pink storm of minute hands practicing perfect pointe form.

Letting go means that thin image rocks until the hinges ache with wear. A dream hides behind the dog-eared corners of day to plead soft snow storm wishes we all say as children that slowly lose their new gleam.

I can crawl like a spider back to bed, sit in that wide web, or somehow rise.

My arms carry sleep with me, wrapped ‘round tight in a blanket. Hands slide through that large red worn jacket, legs step into boots, eyes blinking. The only way to breathe in the light. — Emily Wynn

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Crown of Mountains My throat is in shreds, my vocal chords snapping back and turning to ribbons like the tails of party balloons.

Scones and jams spread out on a garden of cotton daisies.

A teapot dotted with dew beside a matching stump of porcelain wearing a crown of mountains.

Painted roses melting into rivulets down the sharp slopes.

Debris in my fingerprints.

I have swallowed the thorns from the sky over the mountains and afternoon tea is now in my chest.

Melted roses bury in my larynx.

I taste their petals on my lips. — Barclay Sparrow

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Jena Gray

Former Glory

Photography

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Spring 2016 Prose Staff Favorite

Station

by Danielle Shulkin

T

rains rolled in and out of the station like the waves of a tsunami. She could hear the screech of the metal getting louder and louder as they came to a stop. The giant board suspended from the ceiling would light up, a flicker of hope, and then the mass exodus of people would report to the track. She tried to study each person’s face and make a story about his or her life, a hobby of hers, but all she saw was blank skin stretched tight across a skull. She tasted the grimy air infused with the sweat of the swarm of people rushing about. She tried to breath only through her mouth.

“You need to make up your mind,” he told her.

“But if I go, don’t you think it will be even harder?” She asked him, looking at her hands clasped together on her lap.

“It will be difficult, of course, and I’ll miss you like hell. But this is an opportunity you can’t pass up,” he replied. He grabbed her hand across the table and gave it a squeeze. At the

same moment, she felt a gentle thud against her abdomen. She wanted to reach out, to comfort the thing, but she restrained herself and kept her hands in his.

“I just...I just think there are more important things than a job. Don’t you?”

“Sweetheart, if you don’t want to go, you don’t have to. But you need to think about how this will affect your career in the long term. Besides, you hate being home. You’ve got a gypsy soul, always on the move,” he smiled at her and his harsh brown eyes pierced hers so strongly that she had to look away and fight back the tears gathering in the corners of her eyes like dew drops on flowers.

She looked toward the trains rolling in and out. What waves take, they never return. She knew that if she left now, she would never come back. The woman that she was would cease to exist. Death. Death of her, death of her insides. She knew she had to tell him. She also knew that would be the end.

“ ” She looked toward the trains rolling in and out. What waves take, they never return.

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“The trains look like waves,” she said.

“What?”

“You know, like waves on the beach.”

“But...they’re metal. And ugly and loud,” he replied, casually glancing at the board. Her train number had appeared. It was due in nine minutes.

He smiled.

“Do you remember that night...a few months ago...when we went to the Ca--” she spoke quietly, but then trailed off when she realized he wasn’t listening.

“Sorry, what?”

“I was just saying. The trains look like waves.”

“You need to make up your mind,” he said, boring his dark eyes into hers.

She could no longer look at him. He just stared at the board, mentally counting down the seconds till she was gone, she imagined. As time

washed away second by second, the lively flowers on her dress seemed to grow larger and larger, swelling as if filled with seeds about to burst. She wanted to scream, to run home and fix things, but instead she sat in her seat, crossed her white, pudgy arms, and glanced at her suitcase. She felt another thud in her stomach which sent her heart beating like the wings of a butterfly. She shut her eyes tight and saw everything in flashes: waves beating against the beach, dresses too tight, trains, seconds draining, flowers blooming, blood spilling, hands on flesh, the scream of a train, again and again, till he grabbed her and drew her towards him in a hug. Her train was here. He grabbed the suitcase that he had packed for her when she first started feeling sick and started to say goodbye before she could realize that she had yet to make up her mind.G

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Contributors’ Laurelle Tae Eun Ahn is a Government & Political Science major but loves writing poetry, especially the ones that encourages people to live on their lives with inspiration and imagination. She learned to find joy and imagination in travelling and exploring different cultures, playing various instruments, reading fantasy fictions, shopping in NoLita, watching weird movies, and socializing with her lovely friends. Laurelle is obsessed with using metaphors, vivid imagery, and colors in her poems. She tries to live colorfully and surround herself with the things she loves.

Hunter Blackwell lives in Hampton, Virginia. She is a sophomore at the College, pursuing a Psychology major and a Creative Writing minor.

Alvin Chan’s selection of work is based off of his “deep dark exploration” series into his own self. He creates pieces that are of the strange and fantastical in his body of work.

Emmanuel Chiappini says to check out his mixtape on soundcloud fam - Scuzz Prince Emanu.

Alicia Devereaux is a Freshman who is still trying to figure out what to do with her life and ignoring the inevitability of the future. She writes poems sometimes to aid her in her blissful ignorance.

Patrick Eberhardt is an English major from Virginia Beach. He loves pugs and is grateful to the staff of The Gallery for all of their hard work.

He is honored to have his story exhibited in the company of so many estimable artistic efforts. Daily, he finds reasons to fall in love with the astounding faculty, staff, and students of The College of William and Mary, pinching himself to be sure he is not dreaming.

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Notes Collin Ginsburg is a Freshman at the College and has been interested in photography for the past five years. His primary photographic focuses are candid and organically composed shots, often taken on city streets. All of his submissions this semester were taken with either a film or DSLR camera during a trip to Israel and Jordan over winter break.

Katie Hogan is a Sophmore pursuring an Economics major and an Art minor and got really excited when she found out that King Abdullah II of Jordan had a cameo in Star Trek Voyager.

Heather Lawrence is a Sophomore double majoring in English and Sociology who types with one hand and says the whole alphabet when trying to alphabetize things.

Bri Little is a Junior at the College, and writes about city life and her obsessions.

Qiuyang Shen, class of 2019, is a Philosophy major student who loves arts and photography.

Barclay Sparrow is a Junior double majoring in Theatre and Linguistics, but has been studying poetry for about 4 years. This piece is an emotional response to a series of stress dreams she experienced last year. They alerted her to a concerning lack of agency she was feeling while trying to reconcile with the power she had over herself to downplay the stress in her life as something less than what it was.

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Editors’ Note Dear Reader, Second time’s the charm. We began our second semester with specific goals in mind: recruiting a larger, dedicated staff, increasing submissions, and redesigning our layout. Our staff last year was committed, but our small numbers meant we spent many long nights in the pub lab. We wanted to expand our staff to bring in new ideas and make the magazine more efficient. Luckily, our promise of baked goods and funny YouTube videos worked.

With the help of our new staff, we were able to increase the amount of student contributers by 43% compared to the previous spring. This increase in submission allowed us to diversify the content of our magazine. With so many submission we never had a dull moment in our weekly meetings. We even had to increase our meeting length a few times in order to fully review each piece. We spend as much time as necessary discussing each piece in order to make sure that every member of the staff has a voice.

Recreating the layout of the magazine was the change that had the most influential on increasing the overall quality of the magazine. We worked with our editors to reivew old editions of The Gallery to draw from stylistic choices previous editors had made. Once we had figured out which pieces we liked, we faced the task of formatting them together to create something new, while stil keeping true to the character it has taken on in recent years.

We are extremely proud to be presenting th Spring 2016 issue of The Gallery and hope you enjoy it.

-Heather Lawrence & Lauren Murtagh

Colophon

The Gallery Volume 30 Issue 2 was produced by the student staff at the College of William & Mary and published by Western Newspaper Publishing Co. in Indianapolis, Indiana. Submissions are accepted anonymously through a staff vote. The magazine was designed using Adobe Indesign CS5 and Adobe Photoshop CS5. The magazine’s 52, 6x9 pages are set in Garamond. The cover font and the titles of all the pieces are “Ahellya”. The Spring 2012 issue of The Gallery was a CSPA Gold Medalist with AllColumbian honors in content.

Check out the Gallery online www.wmpeople.wm.edu/site/page/gallery www.facebook.com/wmgallery @wmgallery

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submit to gallery@email.wm.edu