A poem by Lesley Valdes (poetry ’15) appears in Innisfree Poetry Journal:

In the parking lot in front of the Shell station

In the parking lot in front of the Shell station,

a chair, a prie dieu

like the nuns used.

Mahogany—worth something

even if you didn’t pray—and the chair

inviting hips ampler than hers.

Made for whom?

… continue reading here.

Three poems and audio by Rose McLarney (poetry, ’10) appear in Terrain:

Writing on a Scrap of Paper in Reach

Slipping over museum marble floors, it was so easy—
movement between places and people. In this room,

modern American painters, step to the next,
to traditional African pots. Not so outside

the hush of those halls of protection,
navigating the living, struggling city. A street

… continue reading the rest of the poem here.

Two other poems, “When to Wear a Strapless Dress, and Not Consider What is to Come” and “Wildfires, Election Week” appear immediately following “Writing on a Scrap of Paper in Reach,” and have accompanying audio.

A story by Abby Horowitz (fiction, ’15) appears in Memorious:

My Husband Had a Name Once and So Did My Son

          When I come home at night from yoga, I am so heartless, I cannot even pet the dog. I would rather sit on my hands than reach out to touch his fur, even when he nuzzles next to me on the couch.

        Why are you sitting like that? my husband asks. Isn’t that uncomfortable?

I’m practicing, I say.

         My husband does not ask: For what? Once we danced around this room rehearsing the tango for our wedding. Now he picks up the crumpled tissues scattered about the living room floor. [… continue reading here.]

A story by Robin Black (fiction, ‘05) appears in Waxwing:

My Parents Are Cruel to My Brother

My parents are cruel to my brother. He says they are cruel to me too, but that I have, we both have, become blind and deaf and numb to their cruelty — for ourselves, not for the other. He says that we have switched our skins so I feel his hurt and he feels mine. He says that when they stand close to him, he isn’t there, when they are near enough to breathe on me, I disappear. He says I don’t remember, because you don’t. He says it is like death that way. [… continue reading here.]

A series of poems by Shadab Zeest Hashmi (poetry, ’09) appears in Mudlark:

… for the rest of the series, click here.

William Morris, Strawberry Thief (textile design)

Strawberry Thief Singing

The thrush, caught jubilant, after stealing 
ripe fruit from the artist’s garden, goes to 
a prison of textile, serves a sentence 
of centuries in cotton, needles passing 
through her feathers, stitches on the sigh
(or the ghost of song) in her bill, on wings.
She will be stretched on Raj furniture
across the commonwealth, a souvenir
in chintz, her crime displayed on bedspreads.
She will hang from windows, a doll of the wind.