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It’s a tender gap, a handclap
"Golden Orb Weaver" collage by Tiffany Dugan
by Ashleigh A. Allen
Starting next week, we pray loud
in the direction of memory.
Face forest like a flag, mount the lions.
Your insides hairy and damp as concrete.
Sundays full of worry and worms, socks
hour the clocks full of snow, the doorway
is deliberate. In the garden, flattening
the lawn. Your song comes to me eyes
first, lands on warm lashes, saliva
across a naked face, you look up, ask for sky
but all you get is god, -
Waiting for Leonora Carrington at Cafe Alma Negra
"Storm Brewing Over the City" painting by Nuala McEvoy
by Laurel Benjamin
wouldn’t order for you because I don’t know your coffee tastes,
but this place has a steel reputation. I heard rumors
about your cloistered ways, how you’ve grabbed a sack and thrown it
dripping on the threshold, creature with fangs and octopus eyes
birthed. Frankly, all I could imagine,
dark roast, though the art photos
plastered on the walls don’t jive with your paintings,
especially the mohawk woman. I expected
your small flames to fan at the table
on time, -
Three Essays on Ants While I Hover Overhead, Poisoning Them
by Dennis James Sweeney
How Regret Falls Like Rain, Seasonal but Never Promising
The ants waltz in droves to their dying : sweet
syrup at the brittle edge of hunger . I do
not want to kill a being . I do not want
to be death . But the ants are driven mad
by my small war . Their faces glow with
ghoulish hairs I can feel in my teeth . -
Letter From the Editors, LIT 38
How do we describe the indescribable: the start of most apocalyptical election is but a week away, there is war, there is war, there is war, and there is Nostradamus. It is spooky season and there is no costume for this. To walk in the graveyard is all the ground beneath our feet. The veil is thin my friends, have a peek.
For this issue, our themes rise up through the fog to walk the earth, undead and “Gucci, green snake skin, off-season, on sale” – from The Allegorical Doctor
Horror comes in as many forms as the imagination will allow,
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LIT 38, Fall 2024
How do we describe the indescribable: the start of most apocalyptical election is but a week away, there is war, there is war, there is war, and there is Nostradamus. It is spooky season and there is no costume for this. To walk in the graveyard is all the ground beneath our feet. The veil is thin my friends, have a peek.
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In the Old Capital
Art by Matt Bollinger
by Yuko Iida Frost
One night after work in December, I decided to hop on the express train to visit Masa unannounced. The restaurant where he worked was tucked behind a quiet street, off the Imperial Palace. The oldest in Kyoto, it used to serve the emperor until the capital moved to Tokyo, formerly called Edo, in the late nineteenth century. The street was dark. Their unassuming façade disguised its legendary reputation and looked more like an entrance to an old merchant’s house trying to hide his wealth. The sliding door was almost invisible with only two dimly lit paper lanterns hanging on both sides.
