Remus The Literary and Art Magazine of The American University of Rome Volume XIV Spring 2023
Remus Volume XIV (Spring 2023) www.literaryimagination.org/
Remus Volume XIV (Spring 2023) www.literaryimagination.org/
Remus The Literary and Art Magazine of the American University of Rome The American University of Rome Press Via Pietro Roselli 4 00153 Rome, Italy www.aur.edu Produced by the English Writing, Literature, and Publishing Program Editors Yasmine Guiga Olivia Kesselman Josephine Dlugosz Faculty Supervisors Lisa Collett a Andrea Pacor All works published by kind permission of the authors Layout by Andrea Pacor Logo by Andrea Pacor Cover Design by Andrea Pacor with art by Isabela Alongi and Raegan Peluso Copyright © Remus 2023
Authors 5 Hannah Cunningham 6 Yasmine Guiga 8 Sabina Da Via 12 Kathryn Uliana 14 Tatiana Parente 15 Marina Matt ei 16 Elianne Dewulf 17 Lee Lanzillott a 20 Amina Mamedova 24 NEMO 25 Hannah Cunningham 26 Isabela Alongi 27 Corey Munro 28 Alexandra Shaburova 29 Elianne Dewulf 30 Grace Stathatos 31 Jason Matt ia 32 Alexis Apple 33 Nalu Gruschkus 37 Elianne Dewulf 39 India Davis 40 Yasmine Guiga 41 Kathryn Uliana 45 Kelsey Logsdon 46 Delaida Rodriguez 46 Hilla Dragushansky 47 Kate Fitz gibbon 47 Charles Schwebs 48 Lucia Guerrieri 50 Josephine Dlugosz 52 Ann Louise 54 Elianne Dewulf 55 Victoria McAteer 63 Kaya Chamberlain 65 The Dramatic Arts Club 66 Antonio Fronterrè 67 Yasmine Guiga 72 Nia Atanasova 73 Raegan Peluso 75 Kendall Grant 76 Alexandra Shaburova 77 Lucia Guerrieri 78 Bart Jansen op de Haar 79 NEMO 80 Kathryn Uliana 82 Isabela Alongi 83 Marina Matt ei 84 Hannah Cunningham 85 Autumn McIntyre 87 J. Scott Cameron 91 Kea Gerike 91 Marina Matt ei 92 Miranda Braemer 93 Olivia Kesselman 96 Kelsey Logsdon 97 Marina Matt ei 99 Raegan Peluso 101 Hannah Park 102 Amina Mamedova 103 Bart Jansen op de Haar 104 Marina Matt ei 105 Miranda Braemer 106 Elianne Dewulf 107 Grace Stathatos 108 Kaya Chamberlain 109 Halina Wolnikowski 110 Ann Louise 111 Olivia Teufel
Remus 4 Foreword Dear Readers, As yet another academic year comes to a bittersweet end, we present to you the fourteenth edition of REMUS. Several of this issue’s contributors are graduating seniors, leaving behind the legacy of their work and the influence of their time spent at The American University of Rome. It will not escape our readers’ attention that this edition features a wide range of poems that showcase the contributors’ mastery over different forms, from the sonnet to the formal ode, and even the harsh demands of the villanelle. Our flash fictions are witty, trenchant, and deeply in tune with the vast spectrum of human emotion. Our longer pieces, fiction and non-fiction, are reflective of a considerable level of maturity and sophistication. Our fine arts and photography contributors present us with a variety of abstract paintings, striking portraits, and impressionistic landscapes. Lastly, for the second consecutive year this edition includes photographs from the final performance of AUR’s Dramatic Arts Club, “Fragments of a Fleeting Life.” The REMUS editorial team is constantly striving towards making each issue as memorable as can be. We are proud to have had the opportunity to bring these inspired works to you all. Kindly, The Editors
Remus 5 Butt erfl ies Hannah Cunningham
Remus 6 The Lilies are Dead Yasmine Guiga There was an empty perfume bottle you refused to throw away. It sat on your dresser, collecting dust. I turned it into a vase and put lilies in it. You dropped it once, in your rush to leave for work. It didn’t break, but a small crack appeared on the glass, barely visible, barely there. It cut you when you picked it up. In the shattered glass I saw shards of myself. Blood bubbled on the pad of your thumb. Still, you kept the bottle. Later, a callous formed over the wound. I put on lipstick the same way you do. I brush my hair the way you taught me to – in sections, from ends to roots. But you never knew how to braid my hair – I learned to do that on my own. I’m six, and we’re both standing in front of the bathroom mirror. I’m watching you put makeup on. I wish I looked more like you. I’m fourteen and we’re sitting in the living room. I’m painting your nails for you because you were never good with your hands. There’s an edge to the morning light – It’s sharp, yellow, too bright.
Remus 7 I tell you to stop fi dgeting – my chastising makes you laugh. “I don’t have any sisters,” you say. “But now I have you.” “My daughter.” “My sister.” “My best friend.” I am that empty perfume bott le you refuse to throw away. I’m seventeen, lighting a cigarett e the same way I watched you do it. Smoke fi lls the room as I fl ick the burning embers of my girlhood over the ashtray, and grieve the child I could’ve been. A nimbus cloud gathers in the atmosphere – Dark, drab, dense enough to block the sun. Opal tears rain from the sky, their iridescent mist waters the wilted white lilies in the vase, but it’s too late. The lilies are dead, and in their stead bloomed purple hyacinths.
Remus 8 A Beautiful Mess Sabina Da Via
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Remus 12 Capital Cities Kathryn Uliana SACRAMENTO Sacramento, where the tunnel was lit in dim rainbow lights while we stood out of someone’s sunroof diving though, holding our breath. Sacramento, the concert halls where I had no idea who was playing but I tagged along with my friends anyway. Sacramento, the record store where I sifted through record sleeves I vaguely recognized and said to my friend, “this one’s good” even though I’d never heard of Television Personalities. Sacramento, the hostess job where I spent 17 to 20 receiving more of an education than any afterschool activity could have given me, overhearing from two servers on a smoke break outside the door of a starkly lit kitchen that, yes, you can in fact contract strep in your genitalia. I lost much of my agreeableness at that job. You, Sacramento, a petulant father who couldn’t stay. The screaming matches I could’ve won. You, Sacramento, a grandmother beloved by all but by me the most. The goodbyes I could’ve said. You, Sacramento, a woman who reluctantly became the best mother I did not deserve. Sacramento, the “irresponsible adults” around me. Irresponsible adults, the nice woman with the clipboard and long hair called them. Irresponsible adults who let a little girl blame herself for their inability to help. Maybe I have the nice woman convinced it’s not my fault either. Because if it’s not my fault, what can I do. It has to be my fault. The second culture kid that can’t fit in anywhere except crying on a comfortably cold bathroom floor. The baby of the family, afraid my neurosis comes off as narcissism. Not living up to either culture’s conflicting expectations of me. I still need room to grieve. Even if I wanted to come back there’s nothing left for me in you, Sacramento, except arrested development forever. You did a fantastic job letting me go.
Remus 13 ROME Rome, I need a new identity, so I’ll be the girl who brings tarot cards to school. where I can fi t everyone into archetypes. Rome, where I fi t in. Where avoidant att achment is rebranded to “wanderlust”. Rome, where I am safe, I am safe, I am safe. Rome, I don’t need to escape from you, so why do I keep dissociating? Rome, when sojourners want to stay in touch you’ll have fair weather friends forever. Rome, I got some sleep and realized this was all bullshit. PARIS Paris, city of love, I swear I’m trying not to be a misandrist but when a man unwelcomely hits on you in Pere Lachaise within earshot of Chopin, morals are tested. Paris, if I walk enough steps in the Louvre I can be completely alone. In the northern European paintings. And among those monochrome walls I can breathe. Paris, I can disappear for days because I live alone and nobody depends on me and I depend on myself. Paris, I can go up to a perfect stranger and start a conversation. But not today. Paris you are a 45 minute walk from the Opera house to school when I am already late because the eighth feels like the sixth ring of hell. And maybe the seventh too. Paris, growing up I collected enough Audrey Hepburn iconography to rival my Catholic grandma’s obsession with the Virgin Mary. Am I Sabrina Fairchild yet? Hepburn probably didn’t set the fi re alarm off while microwaving popcorn. Paris you are the acquired taste of poetry I can fi nally enjoy in the basement of a crowded bar with a shameless name.
Remus 14 An Ode for Costanza Tatiana Parente I can see your blue eyes in their pale faces If I could just touch your soul for a second, I would show you beautiful places. I take out another cigarette and I think of you. Pain makes me survive; Are you finally in peace? “See you tomorrow,”-- Costanza – you lied. This damn world didn’t keep you alive. I remember you still smiling in Greece, I know my love, you tried. I see you running in the sand; Close your eyes, you are bright as the sun. Everyone at the beach knows your favorite band, Screaming “stand by me,” just for fun. Your appearance is deceiving. You are the moon Hidden in the dark - leaving In the day like a balloon. Floating away, you take a piece that wasn’t yours See you soon- there is a hole in my heart.
Remus 15 Impression Marina Matt ei
Remus 16 Held by Nothing Elianne Dewulf
Remus 17 The Boy in the Library Lee Lanzillott a A wave of bitt er, aching nausea overcame me as I looked down at the lett er scrawled in red at the top of the paper. He’d given me a C. For the fi rst time, I’d gott en a fucking C. Christ, what a mess. While I hadn’t exactly been expecting an A considering how litt le I’d studied, I’d assumed I’d managed a B at the very worst. Oh! how wrong I’d been. How utt erly, stupidly, wretchedly wrong. What a fucking wreck. That evil, ominous lett er which almost seemed to glow with the intensity of a raging home-destroying fi re seemed to burn my very eyes. They began to water, to leak pathetically, causing my vision to swim. I started to breathe rapidly, my heart hammering in my chest like a bird batt ering and bloodying itself against the rusted bars of its cage. I needed to escape. Crumpling the hideous test in a single, furious movement, I ran out of the classroom. Walking at double-speed I found myself blindly rushing away. Horrible images fl ashed through my mind. I saw myself returning home, living forever in my family’s cold house as some pathetic toy of my mother’s, just another one of her litt le pets who exist solely to amuse her. I saw pill bott les and shot glasses and lonely hours wasted. I saw all the ugly, bitt er things I had left behind when I’d gott en on the plane those months before. For a mad, terrible moment I wanted to throw myself into the road, to die swiftly rather than slowly. But the desperate feeling passed swiftly enough. I found myself standing on the corner of the road, just outside the gates of the university, staring idly at the looming arch across the street. Beautiful men in full three-piece-suits zoomed by on their motorcycles. Cars rumbled past, one splashing cold murky water on my ankles, darkening the cuff s of my jeans. I winced as the icy stuff soaked through my thin black socks. At least the bitt er chill distracted me, however briefl y, from the caustic storm of rage and despair which roiled within. I knew I couldn’t stay there - I was in the way, clearly, and bound to be splashed again. So I began to walk. At fi rst I couldn’t say for certain where I was headed, though I quickly realized that I’d been moving in the general direction of the library. Passing the batt ered old chapel (a fi ne example of the pleasingly Merchant and Ivoryesque elegant decay which characterized so much of this city eternal) I concluded that this was it. At least there I could escape the agonizing shame of my situation. I could sink idly into some sweet litt le book, perhaps a well-worn Loeb edition, and forget the horrors of the future which no doubt awaited me. Certainly, this wouldn’t fi x anything, but it might soothe me long enough to allow me to formulate a concrete plan. I would not - I could not - allow myself to fail. I needed to maintain my grades,
Remus 18 so that I could attend grad school and build a career for myself here on the continent, far from my family. Although the dreaded image of the C still lurked in my brain, haunting me like the fiery eyes of a devilish ghost… this letter as crisp and distinct and threatening as the first Mrs. de Winter’s famous R… I reached the library. After passing through the otiose garden, I headed for the little chamber in which the Loeb editions were kept. To my great relief not a single student was studying here. With a glum sigh, I closed the door behind me. After a moment of hesitation I closed the great, gray window shades as well. I wanted to hide from the world, with only the sweet familiar lines of Latin which filled those lovely libelli to keep me company. Even the very sight of them was enough to slow my shuddering, fluttering heart. I reached out towards one - a collection of the poetry of Catullus - and slowly stroked the spine. The red material felt smooth and dry and eminently familiar beneath my fingertips. “Liber est, non amansius,” said a low, sarcastic voice suggestive of dusty manuscripts and stained glass. It’s a book, not a lover. With a start, I spun around. By the window there stood a beautiful young man clad in dark jeans and a beige hoodie. His face was pale, perhaps almost sickly, and his hair as dark as his eyes. There was a kind of slavic coldness to his expression, which was neither smile nor scowl. His hands he kept shoved in his pockets, almost petulantly. Those shoulders of his were lightly hunched, partly concealing their broadness and his height. He radiated a kind of strangely irritable anxiety which I greatly sympathized with. As annoyed as I was that he’d invaded this secret, sacred space of mine, I couldn’t help but be glad that he of all people had shown up as opposed to some brutish, inebriated fratboy. And he’d spoken so beautifully, his vowels so pure and round, making it all incredibly clear which were long and which were short. Still, I couldn’t help but ask: “How the hell did you get in here?” “Anglice non loquor,” he replied irritably. I don’t speak English. “Teneo.” I see. This was a lie, of course. Whilst I could understand why he didn’t speak English - we were, after all, in Italy - I didn’t have the slightest idea why he was addressing me with such elegance and ease in Latin, of all earthly languages, nor how he’d managed to slip into the room. I’d been quite certain that I’d closed the door. Surely I would’ve heard him open it again. Of course, perhaps my miserable rumination had so thoroughly captured my attention that I’d somehow missed the high creak of the door and the low thump of his footsteps. “Quid legere vis?” he asked, taking a step towards me. What do you want to read? His shoes were entirely silent and his movements unnaturally smooth, providing the illusion that he did not walk but glide. “Hodie? Nescio.” Today? I don’t know. I cringed at the halting, awkward manner in which I spoke. From the way he winced I could see that he heard
Remus 19 too. But what could I say? I was not in the habit of speaking Latin. He walked closer. Now he stood mere feet away from me. As smoothly and easily as a man speaking his mother tongue, he said to me: “Epistulae Petrarcae, quas magister semper laudabat, iocundissimae sunt. Quamquam, sine dubio, Petrarca non fuit Circero, blanditer et pulchre scripsit. Si diligenter has epistulas legas, multa discas.” The epistles of Petrarch, which my teacher always praised, are very pleasing. Although Petrarch certainly wasn’t Cicero, he wrote charmingly and beautifully. If you were to read these lett ers, you would learn much. “Gratias tibi,” I murmured. Thank you. Although, I could hardly focus on his words, for as he moved ever closer I found myself ever more distracted by his entrancing, almost hypnotic appearance. He was indeed taller and broader than he’d fi rst seemed. As he glided over to where I stood his shoulders morphed from tensed and stiff to more open and relaxed. I yearned to be embraced by him, to be held against his warm chest until I forgot all my fears and sorrows. Along the neckline of his t-shirt , I caught a glimpse of the smooth skin . I felt both ashamed of my lasciviousness and entranced by his beauty. Glancing up at him through my lashes, for he was about a head taller than myself, I tried to come up with a question. I desperately wanted to keep talking to this beautiful, charming man. Finally, I sett led upon: “Ubi studes?” Where do you study? “Pridem hic studebam…” Long ago I studied here. “At anglice non loqueris.” But you don’t speak English. “Multa saecula haec universitas monasterium fuit.” For many centuries this university was a monastery. I’d actually known this. The school had been founded more than a half century before, after the monastery was closed during the changes that came with Vatican II. Of course, given that the fellow was very clearly my own age, there was no way he’d been studying there at the time. I therefore exclaimed: “Sed iuvenis es!” But you are a young man! He laughed - a strange, high laugh which caused a shiver to run down my spine. “Sane iuvenis mortuus.” Indeed, a dead one.
Remus 20 A Bear Is Enjoying Sunset and Is Greeted By His Friend Whale FOUR ABSTRACTS Amina Mamedova
Remus 21 The Butt erfl y Eff ect
Remus 22 Yin and Yang
Remus 23A Snail on Acid is Going Home
Remus 24 Happy-loud NEMO As a child I was happy-loud and the tip-tap of my footsteps was a dance I loved to hear; it still lingers in the hallway on days where my thoughts escape me and all that is left is the blue-love of a blue-home. I wish you had known me as happy-loud when the sunset was just sleepy-haze star-shaped lights, and tucked-in sheets, not bloody and cold and breaking apart the space and time between me- and -me. I am two now. Which-is-which?
Remus 25 Self-portrait Hannah Cunningham
Remus 26 Mind of Mine Isabela Alongi
Remus 27 365 Days Corey Munro I hold tight to a black poker chip As I leave my footprints in the sand. I remember yellow, Like the lights that used to hang In the lavender sky, to tell us the time, And we would say see you tomorrow But never Goodbye. I remember orange, Like the fl oating ashes spott ing The darkness and leaving Enough light to scare the shadows Like the fi refl ies did. I remember purple, Like the dirty sprite that fi zzed On the Ott oman next to her bed When I fi rst said I love you But left before morning. I remember red and blue, Like the circling sounds of those Fast cars that couldn’t fi nd you While you bleed into the night Like an oil spill. I remember brown, Like the color of his eyes That always turned to fog when the steel and glass left forearm spider-bites. I remember the green, Like the meadow where that Grass always grew too high And stone angels who were six feet too tall. I remember the white, Like the paper they hand me At the door that always has their Picture on the front And the poetry. I hold tight to a black poker chip As I leave my footprints in the sand, But turn to see the clear water Washing it all away.
Remus 28 - untitled - Alexandra Shaburova
Remus 29 La follia d’amore Elianne Dewulf
Remus 30 Jumping the Turnstile Grace Stathatos New York And I always wanted to take over the world. I drank concrete: nectar over the honeycomb of Brooklyn I let guns steal my breath. fire smothering my thoughts in a red exhale. My veins, a canal filled with floating swans screaming to my strained strained heart. Beating beating beating Prophetic rage travelled from train tracks to the inside of my spine. White anger coating the “do not jump over, do not vandalize” signs inside my skin; how familiar cold graffiti was to neurotic manhood. I needed some direction... I needed to fight! Prophetic rage does not explode and burst. My rage: a bubbling spring, steaming, broad Vesuvius, a bobcat dying under moonlight. A wilting machine. A fish fattened with plastic. I resisted and I lost. And I was gonna leave home and I’d be alright.
Remus 31 Warped Perspectives Jason Matt ia
Remus 32 - untitled - Alexis Apple
Remus 33 Abnormal Whites and Excessive Blues Nalu Gruschkus When I found out about my father’s diagnosis, my fi rst impulse was to light up. I started salivating and my index fi ngers drummed the picnic table as if to signal w-i-t-h-d-r-a-w-a-l in morse code. It was about seven months ago. I hadn’t been home even two weeks from my fi rst year of college life in Rome. I worked as the pool att endant at The El Rey Court Swim Club, Santa Fe’s wannabe version of a stuff y, hipster country club. I loathed my job, but the money was good. The best treat after a grueling eight-hour shift was a Winston Blue. Or two, depending on whether I decided to take a joyride before making my way home, which was usually the case. The thing that killed me the most was that he wasn’t even the one who told me. It was a scorching day in June. I was wearing a white t-shirt that I had cut-up, and fl owy linen pants to avoid heat stroke. During my lunch break, I sauntered over to the picnic table to meet my mother and sister. They had brought me a burger from Shake Foundation. My mind went fuzzy when my mother told me. I couldn’t tell you exactly what she said, but I can tell you that she was unsure of the words coming out of her mouth. Almost as unsure as I was hearing them. I was left with a bad taste in my mouth. Or maybe that was just one of those come and go moments when your gums bleed. I desperately wanted to conceal all aspects of this new reality with the deepest, lung collapsing initial drag. Smoking feels as natural as breathing to me. Maybe even more so at this point. Moving to Italy was the fi rst real catalyst in turning ‘social’ smoking into chain smoking. Once you graduate with a masters in chain smoking, quitt ing is only appealing to the dead. I’d like to make excuses for myself, but the situation is clearly fucked; my own father was batt ling cancer. He wasn’t a smoker and the cancer wasn’t the lung kind. He had leukemia. You’d think fi nding out that my dad had fucking cancer would have fl ipped the quitt ing switch in my addicted brain. But that’s just it. My addicted brain. It’s not even an addiction to the high. It’s a tactile addiction to the feeling of the butt between the index and middle fi nger of my left hand. I’m a lefty by the way. Let’s just say I feel incomplete when I don’t have a Winston Blue loosely tucked between those two commanding fi ngers. Whenever I feel especially guilty about my habit, I try not to be too hard on myself. I always joke about it saying, ‘Well, at least it’s not heroin.’ I texted my father almost immediately after my mother and sister left. I wasn’t in the right headspace to call him, nor was he to receive my call. A text would be bett er for now. Remus 33
Remus 34 Hey, I heard about the situation. Love you. I have the day off Wednesday so I’ll probably come see you with mom and Luna. I’m more than happy to cut your hair too. It took me a while to find the right words. He never was the stereotypical ‘father figure,’ always more like a friend than anything else. We aren’t related by blood, so we have our own way of talking to each other. My text reflected that — caring but not in a suffocating way, and the fewer words the better. I didn’t want him to know how scared I was deep deep down. I included the bit about cutting his hair because that was something that we shared, father and daughter. I later started cutting my mother and my sister’s hair, but it had started as something between the two of us. I mentioned it in my text because my mother had told me that he wanted me to cut his hair, but she wasn’t sure if I could handle that. I wasn’t sure if I could either, but I hoped that I would rise to the occasion without tears. Smoking is a vice. It’s a coping mechanism that I’ve become fully addicted to. Anytime I feel the urge to quit, something comes up in my life that dashes my good intentions, and I am off to the closest tabacchi to shell out another five euros for that ‘last pack.’ Every time I go home, an essential stop before hopping on the flight is a tabacchi to stock up. In the States, I’m not yet of legal age to purchase cigarettes, so when I first started smoking at sixteen, it was my scandalous secret. I guess it was the first time I felt rebellious and grown-up. A few days later, we drove to Albuquerque. I had my trusty haircutting scissors with me. On the drive there, I couldn’t breathe. A severe anxiety about erupting in tears when we finally arrived was strangling me and that all too familiar salivation came around without fail. As we pulled into his driveway, I caught a glimpse of him hobbling out to greet us. One word came to my mind. Weak. This weakness was already showing in his stride and I felt like there was gravel in my throat. We hugged, and I let my youthful energy transfer to him as he tightly held on to me for several seconds. His house wasn’t a home yet. It remained bare and mostly empty as he had not yet gotten the chance to fill it with his things that were still tucked away at my mother’s home in Santa Fe and in a storage unit. There was a lone chair in the so-called living room. He was a minimalist by nature, so he found comfort in bare space. My mother disagreed, but that’s beside the point. His face was flushed and lacking any vital color and he was out of breath. I desperately wanted a cigarette before cutting his hair. My younger sister wanted to be a part of his haircut. I got territorial, but I let it go, as it always is with a younger sibling. My father collapsed in the chair and wiped the sweat from his forehead. Albuquerque is always hotter than Santa Fe, and he didn’t have air conditioning. “I don’t want it all gone, just trim it as short as you can with scissors. So it’s less noticeable when it’s falling out in the shower. I’ll use the clippers myself eventually.” “Just don’t cut yourself when you decide to do that,” my mom interjected.
Remus 35 I cut away somewhat erratically at his thin, wispy hair while we sat in silence as the gravity of the situation continued to set in. My hands were shaking slightly. My mom bought fresh haircutt ing scissors for the occasion, so I set my trusty, albeit dull ones aside. It was blistering outside now, and his neck and forehead became more and more drenched in sweat. His body appeared limp from sitt ing in the chair. He needed to lay down and rest. After I had done a prett y solid once over in length, I handed the scissors to my sister and guided her litt le hands to areas that she could fi x up. “Don’t nick his ear.” Once we had fi nished, he took a look in the mirror and seemed grateful. We took a family photo on a timer against the blank white wall in his dining room. It’s a sweet picture that captures the memory of the beginning stages of our collective journey. I swept up the hair and disposed of it in the garbage can. Something felt odd about throwing it away. After I fi nished, he gave me a long, tight hug. “Thank you, I love you. I’ll see you soon.” The rest of the summer went by quickly. I was physically and mentally exhausted from working at my main job, eight hours a day in the boiling sun fi ve days a week. Sometimes I was working twelve-hour shifts when a wedding needed a busser or waitress in the evenings at El Rey Court. The other two days of the week, I worked in consignment, eight-hour shifts. What remaining time and energy I had was dedicated to supporting my family. While I was building my savings for returning to Rome, I felt the weight of responsibility. I had a lot of time to think about my role in my family as the eldest daughter and sister; my time home was almost entirely compromised by my plethora of jobs. Now I was going to fl it off to Rome again as if everything was fi ne. It wasn’t fi ne. It wasn’t like I was att ending a state university, or even an out of state university where it was easy to catch a fl ight for a weekend visit. I only visited home twice a year because I live across the Atlantic and an eighthour time diff erence away. I kept asking myself whether I was being selfi sh. When I thought of how this was aff ecting my litt le sister, I shed a lot of tears alone in my car with a Winston Blue tucked between my fi ngers, hanging out of the window. I smoked and cried and got mad at myself for smoking because I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t know how to fi x any of it and it was the most unsett ling feeling I had ever experienced. Towards the end of my time in New Mexico, my father’s younger sister came to stay with him, temporarily relieving the responsibility from my mother, who was going to Albuquerque several times a week to take him to and from the hospital. I had lunch with my aunt one afternoon, and I told her about how guilty I felt about living so far away. “And you know how close I am with Luna, I feel like I’m not doing enough to support her and it’s killing me. My mom works so hard to take care of everyone and I don’t want her to burn out. I feel like I should be staying here
Remus 36 where I can step up for everyone involved.” Rhonda had had cancer too. She’d battled skin cancer and come out of it. I didn’t know this until my father was thrown into it. Her perspective meant a lot to me. “Nalu, we are all so proud of you for starting your life so fearlessly in a new country and following your passion. Your father understands your position and wants nothing more than for you to thrive and live in your moment. You would be doing him a greater disservice by compromising your personal progression. He is going to be fine. Luna is going to be fine. We all just have to wait it out and the best thing you can do is show up for him when you can, even if it’s from Rome.” The last time I was home, which was over winter break this past December, my father finished his last round of inpatient chemo. We had a celebration. He didn’t want it to be a ‘party.’ He’s not a party kind of guy and the less fuss the better. My sister and I made a banner that spelled out, “Auguri papa.” He still has it hanging in his house that is now a home. His home. On January 20th, I flew back to Rome. On that same day, my father had three major doctor’s appointments to see if the chemo worked. I texted him before I left. Love you, good luck with your appointments today and let me know what you find out. On January 25th, everything came full circle when my mom texted me this. Papa’s bone marrow biopsy results just came thru and he is 100% cancer free, all the way down to the molecular level. I was in Portugal visiting a friend. “What’s up?” He interjected, taking notice of my eyes welling up. I quietly recited the text and began to salivate. HIIIIII mom texted me that your bone marrow biopsy results came thru and you’re cancer free !!!! I love you so much, I’m so happy and proud of how resilient you’ve been these past seven months. I shuffled around in my bag looking for my pack as my friend tossed me a lighter. My phone dinged. Thanks Nalu! I’m kind of stunned. All that inpatient stuff behind me. Feels strange. But Fantastic! Then I retreated to the balcony and lit up. It only felt right to bookend the journey. As of now, I plan to quit after college. That gives me two more years to be a fiend. Here’s hoping.
Remus 37 Order Elianne Dewulf
Remus 38 Glasses
Remus 39 India Davis Fish
Remus 40 Clytemnestra Yasmine Guiga Barbarian Queen, ruling like a tyrant. Ten years on the throne, she sits waiting for him. The war is over. Agamemnon stands at the door. He drags in his war prize, triumphant. Clytemnestra greets him with flattery. Her coy smiles and submissive eyes will be his ultimate demise, as she guides his conquering feet onto the crimson tapestry. But she is more than a mother mad with grief, A scandalous figure of the ancient world, She is an architect of vengeance. She looms over the corpses, at her feet a sheath. Two blows of an ax, one thrust of a sword: the deadly dame has delivered her sentence.
Remus 41 Madrinha Kathryn Uliana Camille shouldn’t have worn red to the baptism. She had worried on the way to the church, she had worried up at the altar with her goddaughter in her arms, and she couldn’t stop worrying while standing in the crowded living room during the reception. Her boyfriend, Seth, had been no help. It’s a halter top not a negligee, he had quietly insisted as he pulled his khaki shorts and red henley shirt on that morning. He had been lucky her best friend, Fernanda’s mountain of a husband, had an extra suit. Butt didn’t quite fi t. Camille eased back to reality from her zoned-out fog to realize she was standing in between Fernanda’s husband, Trent, and Seth. They were discussing something fervently. Camille had been more disassociative than usual all morning, but when he turned her att ention to the conversation between the two men, she saw Seth waving his hands in jolting movements. “And then, when that ref called that, I was ready to rush the fi eld, and I’m not even fuckin kidding I would-” She drifted back out. The living room reception was full of faces that felt uncannily familiar, the children of Brazilian expats who had grown up together. Camille didn’t feel much att achment to this world anymore. As the Cold War raged between her and her Florianópolis born father, a founding member of the previous generations’ get-togethers, she was thankful he wasn’t present. Camille’s last connection was Fernanda, and even she kept the families at a distance. Except on days like today. Camille watched as Fernanda zipped around with baby Polly in her arms putt ing out more Brigaderos and displaying the bott les of Cachaça. An hour before Seth and Camille had been walking up to the driveway. Fernanda had pulled both godparents into the room as distractions for the extended family. After the slew of guilt-ridden questions concerning her father and relatives Camille hadn’t seen for years, the Silvas lost interest. Fernanda kept Camille in the family and, in return, Camille vowed to renounce Satan for her daughter in front of an entire congregation. In a stupid red dress. Camille spott ed Fernanda’s grandfather by a yellow cooler. Possibly, her best bet for bearable conversation and a beer. Wordlessly, she squeezed past the two men and approached the seventy-eight-year-old. She placed her hand on his shoulder, startling him slightly. “Oi, tio João, how are you?” Her Portuguese sounded so deliberate. Looking up at her from the couch, his hazel eyes lit up. “Camille! Mas que madrinha mais linda do mundo! Meu Deus, olhe você! Amada minha!” Remus 41
Remus 42 His voice was soft and gravelly, sprinkling in terms of endearment. As she crouched to his level, he grabbed either side of her face and kissed both her cheeks. He tried to stand to hug her, but Camille put her arm around the fragile man as she lowered him back to the couch. “Tem que ter paciência comigo Tio. Já estou perdendo Portuguese.” She wrapped him back in the thick blanket depicting the Corinthians soccer team colors. “Ai, que pecado! Ok.” Camille had the choice to bring up his dead wife, or wait until João asked her how her father was doing, and she would have to have that awkward conversation again. Camille chose self-preservation. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am about Paulina. My whole family, really, we loved her.” “Well.” He started to tear up. Camille realized her mistake. “I didn’t mean to bring it back,” she said, putting one hand on his shoulder and snatching a Xingu beer from the cooler with the other. “No, no- this is a day for tears. Happy tears. It is good for you.” She guessed he meant crying was good for you, but she could not quite make out his points anymore. He took both her hands in his, as so many of her relatives did in less tender moments than that. “She had so many wonderful things to say about you and your art,” he said, generously using the term art. The animated program Camille designed characters for was constantly on the verge of cancellation and, at its best, she wouldn’t have bragged too much about it. “I wouldn’t call my animation art, TV time filler, maybe better.” “Call it what you want but she said it was what you were truly meant for,” he said. It could’ve been a compliment or an insult. “So, what’s the secret for having a marriage as successful as yours? Huh? Most people don’t get it right much less on the first try. “I always told myself, if all I am good for is loving her that’s enough,” he said. It was the only thing Camille actually understood. What a load of horseshit, she thought to herself It was these little (insincerities or sincerities??) sincerities the older generation liked to spread around. Yet, something stung her about that one. She smiled at him shaking her head. “Que foi?” he asked. “That’s just so cute.” He picked up on her irony. “Too American,” he said as he squeezed her hand. “Thank god for that,” she said, knocking back her beer. Camille looked across the room at Seth who was explaining to Trent the plot of a movie she had already forgotten. The sleeves of Trent’s sports coat almost covered his knuckles. At that moment she felt the slight annoyance that had been nagging at her all morning turn to indifference. She slipped
Remus 43 away, back into her vivid thoughts. Seth was just some guy she met on the internet four years ago. There was not much Camille had for herself anymore. Godmother and godfather. They were bound now, with something. A human, not even their human. She had to do something about it. Immediately. The room gradually became warmer as her beer drained. She’d been standing there enough time to notice Seth and Trent gone, most likely to check out Trent’s punching bag in the garage. Fernanda rushed from the kitchen, with baby Polly wailing. She went into the baby’s room down the hallway. Camille, trudging out from her dread, tried to politely excuse herself and walk to the room where Fernanda put Polly down to change. Camille closed the door, damping the sound of the party behind her until it was completely inaudible. Fernanda, across the small room, stood above a crib changing her tiny baby wrapped in a frilly white dress. She didn’t look up as Camille entered. Camille let a few moments pass before whispering, “I have to break up with Seth.” “Huh?” Fernanda said, still focused on her baby. “I’m done with Seth, I’m going to break up with him,” Camille said once more with feeling. “What?! Now?!” Fernanda turned to face Camille, stunned. Even baby Polly raised her head a bit to peer at her. “No,” she said as she picked up the baby and balanced her on her hip. “Besides the fact that it’s probably a sin to dump the Godfather of a child on her baptism day, I promise you whatever horrible thing you’ve convinced yourself Seth does is probably all in your head. Can you hold her?” Fernanda poured baby Polly onto Camille’s lap. Camille shifted the baby around, not completely sure how to steady her. “I talked to João…” Camille began explaining. Fernanda turned her back to open a drawer, she exhaled in frustration as if to say, are you serious? Camille awkwardly rocked the baby in her arms and looked up at Fernanda. “He told me all about him and your grandma, and I –” Her friend turned around to face her. “What my grandparents had was a special freak case of soul mates. You can’t go around taking love advice from a man whose nickname was Don João in the 70s.” “That’s the best they could come up with?” “Do you think I like my husband? I do – But not in that way – the soul mate way. You know what I–” She waved her hands around the way she did in her classroom to emphasize dividing fractions to third graders. “– Seth is a great guy. Don’t let him go because there is a tiny chance something bett er is out there.” Fernanda pulled her daughter back from the football-like position Camille had her in. Camille stood up and paced around the tiny room. “That’s not the point, though. I don’t want another relationship. I want to be single. If I’m going to be with someone, it’s going to be like João and Paulina, it can’t just be this.
Remus 44 Remember how great it was to just be single?” Fernanda rolled her eyes and resumed bobbing her baby up and down again, sitting on a rocking chair across the room. She placed a hair pin between her teeth and continued speaking between clenched teeth. “If Trent and I die, you and Seth…may not be the first choice of legal guardians but you will be considered. As a couple.” She placed the pin behind her ear. Camille sat back down on the bed and pulled her legs to her chest. “Now I’m really hoping you don’t die.” “Now?” Fernanda began to rock the chair. “But look, I did everything a person has to do to have a successful relationship and I’m still… I feel just the same, you know? Maybe worse, but I did everything right. I’m done, that part of my life is done.” Fernanda stopped rocking. “So what, when you think of me do you just see a wife and a mother?” “No – I…” Camille stuttered. “You’re different, you can multitask like that. I–” “ – You fell out of love for a bit. So does every couple…Go take a walk for an hour and you’ll be grand,” Fernanda said, her mother’s Irish accent slipping out on the last words. “You’ll bounce back eventually –” “Babe, can you come out here?” Trent’s gruff voice came muffled from behind the door to the bedroom. “– In a minute!” Fernanda screeched before turning back to Camille. “Can you at least wait until tomorrow? It’s a bad omen to do it today.” “Clarinha, you don’t really believe that,” Camille protested. At that moment there was a weak knock at the door. “If this is Trent I swear–” She swung open the door. When Camille saw what was on the other side, she felt all the kinetic energy leave her body. Seth stood on the other side, his nose completely stained red, his shirt drenched in what Camille deduced was beer. “I think I’m going to have to go to the hospital,” he whimpered.
Remus 45 I Think I Need a Bigger Dose Kelsey Logsdon My patience ticks away with my wristwatch. My Lexapro could do a bett er job Of keeping my eyes away from the time. The paranoia is stuck on my wrist: Is it the meds that make me impatient? Or simply, just the nature of my brain? Though if I try not to think about it, That brings about a new paranoia: Am I missing something that I shouldn’t? Will time forget me if I forget it? Surely time cannot forget a person, Just as a person cannot forget time. Remus 45
Remus 46 The Person and the Shadow Delaida Rodriguez Hilla Dragushansky
Kate Fitz gibbon Charles Schwebs Jungian Shadow Masks
Remus 48 The Heat of June Lucia Guerrieri June’s first memory was of her mother nailing crosses to the fireplace mantle. “June,” she would say, while the hammer echoed throughout the house, “this will protect us from them bad spirits.” Mama was scared of fireplaces and the power within the flames. She would say that she didn’t like how the fire flickered. She didn’t like that feeling coming from the fireplace, the unwelcome warmth that suddenly would crawl up your limbs until you felt your body break into a sweat. June thinks her Mama still imagines that unwelcome warmth slithering up her parents’ limbs when she was June’s age. That flame would land Mama in an orphanage. June’s mother decided to have a child of her own when she was still in school. Mama tells her that she was made on purpose but June doesn’t think anything is made on purpose when you’re 17. She was born the summer after Mama graduated, in the first breath of June. — It was August, many years after that summer, and June thought she was going to die in one of two ways: a slow death from boredom or her body would melt from the summer sun. It was that time of summer, those final weeks of August, when the days feel too long and the heat surrounds your body like a blanket and begins to suffocate you, making your limbs turn to jelly. All June could do was lie out on their porch, sitting on the lawn chairs, drinking copious amounts of lemonade that had more sugar than lemon, trying to read a mystery novel, and dreaming about high school boys. Something out of the corner of June’s eye woke her from her daze when she saw a moving truck pull up in front of Ms. Driscoll’s old house. Ms. Driscoll was an elderly woman who lived alone and had passed away that winter, and her house was put up for sale in spring. June watched as a blue Sedan pulled into the driveway and a blond family stepped out. From afar, June watched a woman, a man, a girl who looked about 17, and a boy who looked around June’s age get out of the car. The boy was wearing clothes too big for his tall, thin frame, his jeans bunched around his waist with a small belt. He was carrying a torn up copy of East of Eden. June could spot the cover even from across the street. Mama used to read it to her before bed when she was having nightmares as a kid. Even now, when June can’t sleep, she recounts the story of the Trask family in her head. June watched as the girl stood by the car with a look that could kill June faster than the August sun.