Literary
Do You Remember?
History is sand slipping through our fingers
The waves that crash and recede into nothing
You erect monuments
You build museums
You create legends
Testaments to our ancestors
But you don’t even know who they were
Why pretend to remember when you plan on forgetting?
You forget the people left to die at the hands of an emperor
Fuel for his idealistic conquest
The great minds who risked everything to share the truth
So the dark world could become enlightened
And the poor boy who didn’t know why he lay at the bottom of a trench
Clutching a rifle in his shaking hands
Can you see yourself there?
Watching men building a barricade
Singing the song of revolution
Standing in Trafalgar Square
Tears streaming down your face as you read the word “Victory”
Touring the White City
With eyes opened to wonders you never imagined
If you had been there
Would you have forgotten them?
You are the artist who adorned the streets of Florence
You are the soldier who broke through the walls of Constantinople
You are the woman who ran from Nanjing
Clinging to the ashes of her life
They were no different than you and I
They were mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters
Fighting to survive in an unjust world
Like the slaves that banded together to demand freedom for their island
Or those brave enough to follow a man with no army
But still set the sun on an empire
They struck like lightning
And crashed like thunder
History is a secret
Locked in a box in an attic
And the key is hanging from your neck
~ Madeline Dracopoulos
Miss Marietta
Stefanie McCleish
Miss Marietta sits on her front porch
smoking a cigarette,
talking to her boyfriends
-the matriarch of White Oak Estates.
As she flicks the ash into her water bottle
a makeshift tray,
Blair zooms by on her scooter
hollering, “Hiiiiiiii Miss Marietta!”
Marietta cocks her head back
releases her mystically hoarse laugh
returning the greeting with an effortless and joyful,
“Hi honey!”
Her perfectly placed curls
barely waiver as she smiles
from her throne.
Miss Marietta appears on her stoop
her foot casted and trapped,
her spirit unchanged
-the epitome of resolve
as she details her plan
to heal from the fall.
Blair chases lighting bugs
on the front lawn
appearing unattentive
but yelling, “Get well soon, Miss Marietta!”
Always sitting on the porch,
always the gracious beneficiary
of a little girl’s warmth.
Blair and Marietta,
each a beacon for the other
illuminating what just a little
tenderness
can do for a person.
Miss Marietta doesn’t emerge
onto the vacant porch.
It’s been a few days.
Even five year olds notice
these things.
The rumors are swirling
and we hear enough to know
Miss Marietta isn’t well.
Kindergarten Blair has heard about
filling other people’s buckets.
She knows what to do.
An avalanche of art supplies
dumps onto our well-loved kitchen table.
She is determined to fix it all,
relentless hope inside,
with the crooked letters
she is just learning to make.
It doesn’t matter how little we know
about the beautiful stories
or the wondrous adventures
of Miss Marietta’s life.
A person doesn’t need to be
well-known
to be cherished.
Blair taught me that.
Miss Marittea’s spot on the porch
remains empty, unoccupied.
the silence,
deafening
her absence
palpable.
A visual for a conversation about loss
that will soon need to occur.
The house next door searches
for peace and comfort
juxtaposed with ours,
full of cartoon characters, giggly squeals
and storybook dreams.
Blair’s encounters with death are limited
to angels and pets crossing rainbow bridges.
And I’m thinking about how
I don’t know how to even begin
to parent through this,
but each night
she says a prayer for Miss Marietta,
never wavering in her unending support.
Stating, that if she needs
to go,
she will watch over us all
and always be
our great neighbor,
our friend.
Miss Marietta,
the Matriarch of White Oak Estates.
She watches over us all
from her front porch throne.
A beacon for Blair,
a light in the clouds.
A person doesn’t have to be
well-known
to be cherished.
And I just try to remember
what a little tenderness can do for a person,
because Miss Marietta taught me that.
-Stefanie McCleish, 2020
Quick Write
Zachary Kotzenberg
I hear a screech and suddenly I flinch and look at what has just happened. I’m frozen and can't move at all. All I can do is watch, I realize I’m in shock so I try to break out of the ice. I feel my heartbeat lift and I get that gut feeling of fear, I’m terrified and confused. I call the police as fast as I can and run over. I see a familiar face. It's my grandpa as I try to pull him out from under the car I smell something I’ve only smelled at my cabin when we drive the pontoon boat. It’s stinging my nostrils, It is flooding my nose with its potent smell. It’s gasoline I hear it pouring and splashing on the asphalt around me. As I try to pull him out a medic quickly pulls me away I try to reach for him but I can’t catch him. I break free and try to run back but before I can the car blows up. I scream in anger and sadness.
A week later it’s time for the funeral and my father dresses me up in an old suit he wore when he was my age. My dad walks in and says “are you ready to go”. Holding every urge to bust out crying and fall on the floor in pain I look at my dad and shake my head. We arrived to the funeral home and as I walked in I noticed the dry crisp fresh air and the atmosphere is almost empty but there that lingering sadness floating around everyone in the room. I go to pay my respects and then I sat down on the couch with my brother and father. I listen to the speeches about how he was the best dad my mom could ask for and she told us all the things he learned from him. After the speeches we all got together and told some stories and then my dad took out some adult drinks and passed them around and everyone laughed. And my grandpa would have wanted that. Us to be happy with each other and laugh because that’s all he wanted was for us to be happy.
Alice in Wonderland
Margarite Coller
I fell down a rabbit hole
Searching for where our love went
I came across a woman draped in lust red
They called her the Queen of Hearts
She took everyone in the land’s greatest possession;
Cutting their hearts out of their chests and placing them in a wooden one of her own
And I thought she was a monster for it
Only when I made it back home did I realize
You and her had that in common;
Holding the hearts of those who do not belong to you