The Round Issue XXII, Spring 2022

Th e R o u nd Volume XXII Spring 2022

T a b l e o f Co n te n t s Passing Through I Itzhak Fant

6

I Love You, Too, Cowboy Anne Marie Wells

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(Lack) Light: Leak (Late) Alana Frances

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Diablo Wind Judy Myers

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Strangling Blue Maggie Yang

12

All Nameless Creatures Judy Myers

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Spaceship Hansae Lee

15

Notes on Sacral Architecture Hannah Gelman

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Lyrics Hannah Gelman

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My Life as a Dog I Itzhak Fant

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It Ends with an Explosion (It Always Does) Alex Berman

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Flight Hansae Lee

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Untitled Claire Chasse

24

Overreactions Laura Romig

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Passing Through II & III Itzhak Fant

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Cellular Laura Atkinson

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Morning Laura Atkinson

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For Cavafy Itzhak Fant

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Strawberries and Sugar Pepper Greenley

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Window Hannah Bashkow

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Break Room Conversation Carol Graser

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My Life as a Dog II Itzhak Fant

41

Colors in a New World Maggie Yang

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Cat’s Cradle Amanda Gray

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Ode to a Greek Sweater Adrian Oteiza

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Football Steps Hansae Lee

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Swept Away Adrian Oteiza

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About the Contributors

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Colophon

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Cover Art by Itzhak Fant Inside Cover Art by Hannah Bashkow Layout and Cover Design by Izzy Roth-Dishy The Round • 3

The Round

Managing Editors Jane Freiman Stina Trollbäck Associate Editors Julian Ansorge Aurelia Cowan Christina Miles Eleanor Peters Design Editors Izzy Roth-Dishy Samantha Sinensky Staff Katherine Cobey Lucy Cooper-Silvis Cerulean Ozarow Laura Romig Hana Saadi-Klein Alex Valenti

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Passing Through I

— Itzhak Fant The Round • 6

I l ov e y o u, too, Co w bo y —Anne Marie Wells

I

close my eyes, let my face warm on your sunset gaze beaming above your lips, tied loose to the rickety pier.

We’re a schooner adrift the hardwood sea, swaying to the storm that’s brewing beyond the horizon, letting the whir guide our feet. We don’t say what we still hide in our safe-harbor throats, but when you begin to croon “Tennessee Whiskey” in my ear, I know. I know just as well as the wallflowers watching us from their seats at the bar.

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(lack) light : leak (late)

— Alana Frances The Round • 9

DI A B L O WIND —Judy Myers

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hosts blaze up with the wind reeling —they barge in, palpable, turbulent

flashes behind the clouds, lightning, the sky transparent for one cascading instant, then another.

They barge in, palpable, turbulent.

Father’s voice calling out, a deep resonance, transparent for one cascading instant, then another.

Hydrangeas, blue circles bob, lunge, heads on sticks.

Father’s voice calling out, a deep resonance.

The fire, ash spinning, choking escape, breath.

Hydrangeas, blue circles bob, lunge, heads on sticks.

Brooms of conifer needles rain down fire, ash spinning, choking escape, breath.

Aunt Mary’s piano plays, delicate, confident.

Brooms of conifer needles rain down softly, a trill of falling notes. Branches skid on shingles.

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Aunt Mary’s piano plays, delicate, confident.

What knocks at the side of the house, slides to the deck softly, a trill of falling notes. Branches skid on shingles.

My dead cat leaps onto the bed, bulky beside me.

The fire, ash spinning, choking escape, breath.

Flashes behind the clouds, lightning, the sky flickers, conifer needles rain down ghosts clamorous wind reeling.

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Strangling Blue

—Maggie Yang The Round • 12

all n a m e l e ss

c r ea t u res —Judy Myers

W

e had no names for things.

We called it crabapple

in spite of white blossoms.

Was it, though?—so late in May, an impossibly short time from the stamen’s gesture to the sour, hard fruit.

Clearly Queen Anne’s Lace, we called bee’s butter. We knew no proper names. Rust-colored moths suddenly monarchs, and the tiny brown pods became chocolate, the sweet vanilla scent like ice cream imaginings when it must have been sumac, sumac berry from the creek’s bank, sumac leaves, tea-colored in fall.

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My favorite: the caterpillar tree (known now as birch) twisting corkscrew seedlings broken, a hundred fluttering pieces.

The aspens, all those leaves rattling, we knew as shining birds’ wings for their neighborly noise, the hundreds of daring reflections in half-light, a stationary tribe of starlings.

I stared out into the yard into the darkness at night, steam on the window, breathing fingers tracing, rehearsing the confines the whereabouts of each life.

All nameless creatures speak at night.

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spaceship

— Hansae Lee The Round • 15

N o t e s o n s ac r a l a r c h i t e ct u re —Hannah Gelman

S

ynagogues are built

from girl collarbone because God knows what is beautiful is sacred that ‫ תראפת‬nests in the decolletage of woman that light pools in the shadow of her neck.

‫תראפת‬: Hebrew for beauty, splendor, glory, magnificence; also refers to a Kabbalistic aspect of the divine

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Lyrics a sonnet

—Hannah Gelman

b

alancé to the right now to the left waltz step slow one two three one two three one

ignite your fingertips soar across the floor wrap your arms around your belly contract and sway sway sway sway really milk this one approach from behind wrap your arms around hers melt into her body head into neck turn to face him stand in parallel stare for a moment then tendu through his legs arms up together break at the elbows let the palms of your hands touch as she rond de jambes beneath you gooey in the hips place your hands on her waist and arabesque in plié run backwards fast as you can

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my life as a dog 1

— Itzhak Fant The Round • 18

I t E n d s Wi t h a n Exp l o s io n (I t Al w ay s Do e s) — Alex Berman

I

must have loved Caroline once; I don’t remember. All I have is her name needle-scratched into ivory, cutting a dark

line through the white. She would press her index finger into my palm, and she was the moon, and I was a moon orbiting her moon, infinite recursions and refractions trying to light the India ink sky. She wanted the whole world filled with light, but we could never quite get the corners. Maybe she could have if I were not tracing circles around her like a sick puppy.

Creamer diffuses from a flash bang into milky tendrils across my coffee. I search for her face in the ribbons during the fleeting moments before the color settles into brown. Caroline took her coffee black. I never had the fortitude to go without creamer, no matter how many times she told me what I was drinking was no longer coffee. I was always dimming things for her, diluting her great plans. She’s gone, and my scrimshaw is all that I’m allowed to keep; her name etched into my eye sockets so it’s all I see when I sleep.

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Her name isn’t the only one I’ve scratched into whalebone, but it’s the only one I’ve carved more than once. I have a wall of Carolines in the shop’s backroom. Caroline, scratched into the rib of a minke.

Caroline, beached onto a sternum. Caroline, tracing a shoulder blade.

C a r o l i n e, separated across phalanges.

If I could frankenstein together an entire skeleton, she might come back. My coffee is warm but not sweet enough, and the shock of bitterness hitting my tongue feels like skin hitting frigid water, the way I imagine whales feel rolling onto the beach.

My town is where whales come to die. They throw themselves onto the sand, and we can do nothing but watch. They are monumental.

Too big for the beach. Caroline was always too big for this town. She never said it, but she disapproved of my livelihood, making kitschy whalebone souvenirs to sell to tourists by our grisly landmarks.

Don’t you want to do something? She would say.

I thought I was doing something, but apparently not. She always had dreams of leaving, so I shouldn't have been surprised to wake one day to an empty coffee pot.

Sometimes I see her rowing back to me in a little dory.

The boat is made of bones. She is cradled in a blue whale’s ribcage.

Whenever whales wash up on the beach, I find myself believing she’ll be there when they cut them open, safe inside a gargantuan artery. She never is, so I take the bones back piece by piece, up the cobbled path and into the backroom, onto the pile of bones that are not my own.

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When we were little, Caroline liked scavenging for bones with me after school. We would go everywhere together. You two must know each other so well, people would say. Like it was a good thing.

They never tell you how much it hurts to know someone so well that her hands are your hands. How in every ripple of her voice you sense dissatisfaction, how you will forever trace and retrace the raised bumps the pen made on the note she left, how the space between the letters scales exactly to the miles of ocean now between you.

I had to leave. I know you understand. She was always making presumptions about me, and the worst thing is that they were true.

I couldn’t stay any longer. Caroline moved like her bones might at any moment jump out of her skin.

I don’t know if I’ll see you again. We both knew she wouldn’t, but even Caroline wasn’t cruel enough to say it outright. She tried to maintain some semblance of politeness, but pretending was hard for her. She’s not human like the rest of us. She never once said “I’m sorry” to me, although she danced endlessly around the subject.

Love, Caroline The way she tossed love around made me dizzy. Love you, as she swept out the door each morning. Love you, when she ran across the beach. Always loving away from me. Every time she said it, my world flipped on its axis, but then she would laugh in that way and she was the moon and I was space junk struggling to orbit stupidly, smally around her. I said it back, every time.

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She’s the place I was born, and I desperately want to swim back to her. But I can’t. The last thing I want to do is gasp for air at her feet. Besides, I have the shop. My world is smaller than hers, but it’s mine. I try to keep it. I drink my coffee with creamer. I hold my home close.

Red hits the window, blotting out the shore.

Did you know that beached whales sometimes explode?

They say it’s because of gas buildup in the stomach but I think it’s because their hearts are too big to possibly stand it any longer.

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flight

— Hansae Lee The Round • 23

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—Claire Chasse The Round • 25

Overreactions —Laura Romig

I

n the portrait of you in my head you stay comfortably close,

lashes down the spread of your skin, dark-eyed and pressing into a smile.

I think I put it there, and so I brush the swell of your cheek, cup it with soft-painted nails, kiss the eyelid’s curve and crease.

Not quite a memory, but close enough, and the curl of your body, closed-parenthesis to mine, well that’s all truth, like our whisper of breath, and warmth, crossing legs under blankets.

I hold this image on the crosswalk, cellphone in hand, suspended in the early-spring light, hemmed by the sun’s newfound heat that steams from the sidewalk, up into the threads of my braided hair.

As I comb it down to falling waves, my hands and hopes both blaze that you will see me, and bend that same smile on your mouth, like I’ve just matched the portrait in your mind.

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When I call you, there’s no answer, and I close my eyes into the vision of you, flicker past those moments when I caved to weakness, bent to jealousy. But the tide rises indifferent, up toward the sun, the body never satisfied, the heart ever restless; the unsettled opening of spring has me cupped in its flowering hand, sticky and blooming—never mind, you don’t need me.

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passing through II & III

— Itzhak Fant

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C e l l u l aR — Laura Atkinson

S

ometimes I can't believe that cells grow skin

in such orderly rows.

How do they know?

Something unconscious, capable of willing my neurons to fire in coded lines that create an interface and a protection from the elements like sand, sock, carpet — I’m thankful for my organs.

May they knit themselves their tissues until otherwise directed.

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Mor n i n g — Laura Atkinson

F

resh grass grows beneath the bent old oak.

The wind plays with a spider’s web between the branches.

Pinecones litter the grass beneath the Ponderosa. A wild turkey walks by, gobbling.

Miner’s lettuce, green, frilled dappled with dots, jiggles in the wind.

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For cavafy

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— Itzhak Fant The Round • 33

stra w e r r b ie and

su g a r

s

—Pepper Greenley

o

n a hot summer day, my mother would gather us, baskets in hand, and usher us into her 2009 Hybrid Lexus (before that it was a

Volvo – black and white with seats that laid flat so all five of us could squeeze together in the back for bed on our road trips because motels were too expensive for us. before that, it was a tiny emerald green 4-door with soft seats that got totaled in the car accident coming home from my brother’s Lutheran pre-school – it was mine before him. i was in 1st grade then, because he was 2 school years younger. he was showing us the grow-in-water dinosaur he got and I was envious, wanting a friend of my own. A big, black SUV ran the stop sign at the intersection one house away from ours – right when my mom glanced back to see the dinosaur, reassured by the fact that we had no stop sign and were two seconds away from being home. it was a T-bone, and somehow, our tiny fragile thing of a car managed to flip the SUV onto its side. no one was injured and the firefighters gave my brother and

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me teddy bears, tan with curly hair and a smooth cream stomach. that night, i tucked my teddy bear into an improvised bed – a shoebox with a stained rag – right next to me, happy to have a new friend). we would go pick ripe strawberries from the little wooden shacks constructed on the side of the road, decorated in bright crimson. under the unforgiving sun, scorching the earth so that every step lifted another cloud of the tan dust drying the inside of my nose and coating my ankles in an ashy sheen, i shoved the reddest strawberries into my mouth, stuffing myself full before i finished filling my basket to the brim – consequences and disease be damned: the red-stained crevices between my teeth; the juice dribbling from the corner of my lips to pool in the vulnerable divot at the base of my throat; a saccharine stickiness coating my tiny, grubby fingers. with beads of sweat slithering down our spines, we would haul our spoils of labor to the delicious chill of our kitchen – even without a fan or AC, the indoors was a much welcome reprieve from the unwanted sauna baking the Central Valley. through the dirty window, the beloved orange tree older than i gently whispered, the smell of orange blossoms infiltrating my pores (on other days, i would wake up early to make waffles and pancakes with my dad. our waffle maker was farm-animal-themed; my brother always wanted the cow because it was the biggest. we would run outside and pick as many ripe oranges the size of my head in our reach. sometimes thorns would grapple back, and i would have to yank to escape with the orange. there is no sweetness without pain. one by one, i would slice our gathered treasure in half and we would squeeze them out to make fresh orange juice. we never needed to add sugar – our oranges were deliciously sweet and refreshing on their own; it was like drinking crystallized

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sunshine. i have never found oranges or orange juice better than ours despite my years of searching. home smells of orange blossoms and tastes like orange juice). bodies and hands moving of their own accord, habitual movements of anticipation fueling our journey. first: a small bowl collected from the peeling cabinet next to the sink – the white yellowed from the progress of time, a delicate unassuming brown and green leaf design cuddling snug around its curves. next: fill it with sugar to your heart's desire, an anthill of granular sweetness. each strawberry washed and meticulously inspected before greedy fingers can snatch them up – a baptism for the profane unbelievers. finally! anticipation makes the first bite the sweetest. it’s a meditative practice, the dipping of the oozing strawberry in the unmarred sea of sugary white. gradually, the lines blur between strawberry and sugar until the edges have all bled crimson – a holy desecration. the newly coated crystals will clump together, not entirely unlike the blood clots that form wherever this much red is spilled. eager fingers scoop these clots, a cannibalistic glee in stuffing our mouths with strawberry-drenched sweetness. when the cup empties, we settle into our sugar-bloated afternoon, hazy and sated.

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window

—Hannah Bashkow The Round • 39

E AK ROO M R B N O T A C O N V ERS I — Carol Graser

S

he tells us she screamed at one black-eyed mouse. I don’t mention my walls are teeming with rats they chew my insulation

She shivers when she tells it: the mouse zipped out when she moved her stove my rats leave droppings 10 times the size We lavish her with comfort and suggestions she nods at our group politely my rats scurry with impunity underneath my skin She listens to talk of traps and basements agrees to the universality of pests my sister rats and I are in council, I serve them tea and listen to their rodent stories When reconciled and done with advice, we walk back to our cubicles, our quiet clicks and worded tasks My hair becomes an ancient forest with silent trunks I lean against and breathe The Round • 40

My life as a dog II

— Itzhak Fant

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C ol o r s in a New W o r ld — Maggie Yang

I

Y

ou tell me to pluck white hairs from your head and I do without asking because I knew you wanted

your youth back in this land, where you are bitter to the tongue. Swallowed with disgrace, stinging the lips of her torch.

I continue, your wrinkled eyes carving the lantern out of you, fading into the rust of light.

English rumbles your words into fragmented syllables, as you ask if you look fine, bundled in your I ♥ NYC hoodie over your 旗袍, scoured with Mao’s eyes and haphazard stitches. Her green hands spooning yes, page by page into my mouth.

A decayed lily, I grovel at the hems of her stride.

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II This land where red isn’t red and white isn’t the white your know from home. Nor is the yellow the yellow drowning in a sidewalk's piss. You point to those billboards in Chinatown, of decayed moth wings fluttering to their funerals. They float, the underbellies of fish, ripe of dull silver.

III Where the colors of you drain into the landscape, a white swan butchered as it suffocates its way home amidst the silver fish. Only a feather to pocket in the naked ocean.

IV No suns rose as Ellis Island came into view, but the smog of the sea formed a gnarled finger pointing where yellow should be. _____ ____ ___ __ _ Translations:旗袍 means qipao, a traditional Chinese dress.

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cat's Cradle

—amanda gray

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O d e to a G r e e k S w eat e r — Adrian Oteiza

“A working woman, rising before dawn to spin and needing light in her room, piles brushwood on a smoldering log, and the whole heap goes up in a mighty blaze. Such was the fire of Love.” ―Appolonius Rhodius, Jason and the Golden Fleece

S

tanding by the fire, I am clumsy and cut my wine dark sweater.

Where once there was one thread, there are two— Hydra heads turn skyward.

An old woman with rotten teeth, The Fates, warned me not to pull loose strings when she left the sweater in my arms, three sizes too big, touching my knees.

She had too much time on her hands—

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as do I.

So I tug slowly, watching sea blue thread slink back in my grasp— other threads shiver in the wake remembering Ariadne.

The sweater barely reaches my belly and I feel sorry for what I have done.

It will never be the same— ocean string entangled around my naked feet.

I begin to work on the other string.

Like I—the Minotaur has rope around his neck and pulls me deeper into the labyrinth.

It is impossibly eternal, the messiness of an unraveling world forever on fire, loving.

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football steps

— Hansae Lee

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S we p t Away — Adrian Oteiza

A

t midnight it drizzles, a horse trots in the gutter.

My laundry has grown moldy

and the sky has forgotten its makeup.

My jacket is fog and my boots are heavy.

I breathe in through nostrils becoming drunk with puddle memories.

Maple leaves yellow on the old clocktower, its hands rusted green and bricks bleached pink.

There is a rainbow above me.

I duck inside an open book and sit in leather chairs.

The oil lamp is bright and the words are loud.

Rain disappears.

Trees are skeletons, each leaf swept up— and burned on this sweet October night.

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A b o ut t h e contributors

Laura Atkinson is a poet, lyricist and MFA candidate at San

Francisco State University, where she has taught. She holds bachelor’s degrees from Brown University and her work has recently appeared in After the Pause, Haikuniverse, and The Round. Her lyrics can be found at http://pilgrimmusic.net.

Hannah Bashkow is a student at Brown University concentrating in Visual Art. Her artwork ranges from crochet and beaded jewelry to collage and oil painting. She is interested in using the associations of color, shape, and different artistic media to create nuance and meaning in her art. Hannah's work primarily focuses on exploring identity & the body, expressions of joy, and questioning social values. instagram & depop: @hbashkow

Alex Berman is a junior at the High School of American Studies at Lehman College in the Bronx, and was born and raised in Manhattan.

At school she is on the cross country, track and mock trial teams. When she is not out running, she can usually be found drawing, writing, or reading. She also serves on the Teen Editorial Board of jGirls Magazine.

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Claire Chasse is a junior at Brown University studying Visual Art and Sociology. She believes that things can hold the energy of their histories, and she likes to experiment with what kind of energy her art can (and can’t) hold.

Itzhak Fant is a painter, writer, and conservator-in-training from New York. He is interested in the distance between antiquity and the present day. He think people and horses want to be free.

Alana Frances is a Senior double concentrating in English and

Modern Culture & Media, who recently completed an Honors Thesis in the English department. She is an interdisciplinary artist, working both visually and textually. Her work has appeared in Cabinet, ZYZZYVA, The College Hill Independent, and Volume 1.

Hannah Gelman is a graduating senior at Brown concentrating in Judaic Studies and Religious Studies. She is passionate about the various intersections between Judaism and art, and uses poetry as a medium for her spiritual exploration and expression. Hannah wants to be a rabbi when she grows up.

Carol Graser hosts a monthly poetry series at Saratoga Spring’s

legendary Caffe Lena that she initiated in 2003. She has taught poetry workshops to teens and at-risk youth. Her work has been published in many literary journals, most recently in I-70 Review, Midwest Quarterly and Hollins Critic. She is the author of the poetry collection, The Wild Twist of Their Stems (Foothills Publishing 2007).

Amanda Spalding Gray is a writer and illustrator based in Providence, Rhode Island. She currently works as a carpenter and organizes a small but sweet writing group in the city.

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Pepper Greenley is a junior at Brown studying Environmental Engineering (AB) and English (AB). Many of her favorite memories are tied to fruits. Outside of writing, she tends to her plants, bakes excessively, collects bones, fosters cats, and dreams about becoming a Redwood tree.

Hansae Lee is a sophomore studying Applied Math-Economics and Philosophy at Brown. He has been taking photos for about seven years.

He is primarily a street photographer and his use of color has become a focal point in his work.

Judy Myers’s flash piece “Is Girl Here” was published in Quiddity and nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her short story “Runaway” was shortlisted for the Bellingham Review Tobias Wolff Award, and her short story “Tornado” received an honorable mention from Glimmer Train’s Family Matters contest. Judy is professor emeritus at Diablo Valley College and taught essay writing, creative writing, and literature for twenty-seven years before retiring. She holds a BA in English from Sarah Lawrence College and an MFA in English/creative writing from Mills College. She is also a textile artist and has lived in England and France.

Adrian Oteiza has lived in Denver Colorado for his entire life

and rather enjoys it there. He writes poetry in hopes of unveiling what we have overlooked in the everyday, but has just started to share those hopes. When not writing, you are likely to find Adrian drinking coffee and ruminating on triangles somewhere cozy. He is currently attending university at Brown and is studying literary arts.

Laura Romig is a student at Brown enamored with the study of language and the possibilities of magical realism and speculative fiction. She calls Atlanta home, and you can find her work published in From Whispers to Roars.

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Anne Marie Wells (She | They) has been published in The

Dallas Review, Passengers Journal, Brain Mill Press, Santa Fe Writers Project, and others. Anne Marie is the recipient of the 2020 Jackson Hole Chamber of Commerce Rising Star Award for community service and the 2018 Marius P. Hanford IV Award for playwriting. She was a 2021 Wyoming Woman of Influence nominee in the arts category.

Currently a faculty member of the Community Literature Initiative through the Sims Library of Poetry, Anne Marie received her bachelor’s degree from the University at Buffalo and her master’s in applied ecology from Universidade de Coimbra, Portugal. You can learn more about Anne Marie at her website, AnneMarieWellsWriter.com.

Maggie Yang is a 15-year-old poet and artist from Canada. She was a finalist for the Polyphony Lit Poetry Contest 2021, for the Oprelle Poetry Contest 2021, and for the Alice Munro Short Story Contest 2021. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Polyphony Lit, HEBE, Surging Tide Mag, and Teen Ink. Aside from writing, you can find her competing in ultimate frisbee in Canada or painting.

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Colophon T

he Round is a literary and visual arts magazine based at Brown University.

Our name is adopted from the musical “round,” a composition in which multiple voices form an overlapping conversation. It is our mission to extend and enrich the dialogue surrounding literary and visual arts at Brown by creating a community of artists across the country and around the globe. We are excited to work on a magazine which brings together contributors with a wide variety of backgrounds, ages, and places they call home.

We welcome submissions in any genre or medium and publish both students and professionals. Send your work, comments, or questions to theroundmagazine@gmail.com.

View submission guidelines and learn more about us by visiting http:// students.brown.edu/theroundmagazine. Check out past issues at https:// issuu.com/theroundmagazine.

Sincerely, The Editors

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