family

Gma

By Sophie Dess

My grandmother’s eyes at times are obscured by two thick sheets of glass placed in cat-eye frames – she wears bifocals, which means she can’t gauge the scale of a decline. I think it’s formally deemed ‘a problem with depth perception.’ Thus, stairs pose a particular problem; her shaking hand is always in search of a surface on which to balance her small – but nevertheless imperious – figure.

I travel with her down to the subway platform and watch her ring-adorned fingers shake until they clasp something stable. My eyes always settle on the […]

Gma2018-05-07T21:29:31+00:00

Sundays

By Sophie Dess

This was when I’d lie transfixed by the light that only came on Sundays, with my small body wrapped in a quilt cocoon, my head pressed against the pillow and eyes open and eager. I’d study the pale green of my walls, lit in that tender, rustic way. Lit in a light so delicious that my nails would itch to scrape it off the wall and taste it, to capture its green warmth in a jar and let it glow, perennially, in a darkened room where maybe I’d take a peek at it for […]

Sundays2018-05-07T21:46:24+00:00

A Reflection on Uncle Leonard

By Ian Thompson

If one had asked you why
your career in the arts
never flourished, you would
have shrugged perplexedly.
the stub on your right foot—
what remained of a toe
you’d sheared off to avoid
being drafted—a sign of
the madness that all geniuses must possess.

Today, I read about
a sculptor who achieved fame
for ingesting a lethal combination
of psychedelics and amphetamines,
then stapling his testicles
to a park bench in broad daylight,

and I couldn’t help but think
that maybe you could’ve tried harder.

 

Ian Thompson is currently working to receive his graduate degree in Literature at California State University Long Beach. He has published poetry in the literary journals Cadence […]

A Reflection on Uncle Leonard2018-05-07T21:49:25+00:00
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