Applause Journal – A National Literary Journal from UAFS

Issue 32

Poetry

Palaanga Ta Ka and Other Poems

Cesca Ledesma

Self-Portrait as CD

Josephine Desir

Half-assed echolalia and other Poems

Lauren Caldwell

To Everything That Cuts Fruit

Olivia Hayes

year before you left home and other poems

Kimmy Chang

Six Servings Per Can and Other Poems

Molly Ruffing

When I Was Nine and other poems

Sky Brubaker

And that wolves whisper

Isabelle Edgar

from Palaanga Ta Ka

Danjugan Island, Negros Occidental, Philippines
Clothed in blue and green, it shows
you nothing… and this is how
Google Earth fails me,
just when I thought technology
could do anything. All I see is blur
and pixel, sea and vegetation. Where
is the North Lagoon? Sapphire waters
sucking clamor

from Half-Assed Echolalia

heaven might be a hotel bed
with sheets too white
for either of us to think about dead pigeons
or alcoholism
we’ll go downtown
and lower ourselves from the book shelf that holds
every poet whose last name begins with D

From Year Before You Left

the beginning is filled by green hills and their dark outlines,
the crows of wild roosters along the roadside.

but today is another long commute. muddy and foggy.
and soon, it reduces to only the pavement gray.

as a kid, your fingers used to trace the car window rain,
as small drops were consumed by the larger waters rolling by.

FICTION

Green Leaf Volatiles

Kerin Mcaleese

Corela

Tara Mann

Hazelnut

Brigid O’Brien

The Busker

Carter Crosby

from Green Leaf Volatiles

I can still smell the freshly cut lawn by the hands of my grandfather. Pa always took care of us, even after they both left. First, it was his son to hit the road. Ironically, I even think his name was Jack. We don’t really even talk about him now. We used to, a lot. But after my mom dropped, we all kind of shut up about the whole thing. It was just too tempting, you know? For all of us to sit around and feel sorry for ourselves. I don’t mean we never did, but when we did... we really did. When Pa would find out just exactly what was going on, he’d take us all outside. We would all take turns mowing that damn lawn right out of existence.

from The Busker

My mother hands me several quarters. I immediately think of what I can spend them on– but before I can tell her, she turns me around.
There is a soft-looking man with curly white-orange hair and a beard. He plays a guitar. His case is open on the ground. My mom nudges my back.
She signs to me, “Go.”

CNF

The Perfect Simmer

Brian Le

Hair

Nina Daswani

In Appreciation of the Golden Age

Jeff Mason

comic strips

Phoebe Ward

from The Perfect Simmer

1. The perfect simmer, in the world of cooking, requires the greatest amount of skill, precision, and intention. What distinguishes a cook from a chef is intention, not talent.

2. Too much heat underneath results in a raging torrent. While not enough results in a still, unchanging concoction. If the simmer is not simmering, it is bathing. Sitting in its grime like a traditional human bath. The only way to homogenize the ingredients when simmering requires intention and impeccable timing.

I am a new mom, laying on the bed in my one-bedroom apartment in Waikiki, sunlight and traffic sounds streaming in, marveling at my baby’s beautiful hair - the brown curls that strangers stop me in the street to comment on - and thinking about how much I love them. I think a part of the reason I love them is because they come from me. This is not his father’s hair, but my hair. People always say that he looks like a mini version of his father, but I know I am in there too, and sometimes I want to scream at them, “He’s mine, too!” His father’s family attributes everything in him to a relative of theirs. His long, graceful fingers come from a great- uncle somewhere.

from In Appreciation of the Golden Age

Christmas Eve, 2006. Me and my brother sit on my grandma and grandpa’s white shag carpet. This year, we’re hoping for some new Bionicles. It doesn’t matter to us which one of the 20 family members packed into this living room picked our names for Secret Santa; we’ll give any of them a big sugar-rush hug in any case, as long as we get our toys. I’m six and my brother is eight. Christmas for us is life-changing.

Art + Photography

Tunnel Vision Tendencies and Other Photographs

Ellie Wardman

Etchings

Martins Deep

Dress Up

Emmanuel Oguns

The Returning Fly and Stuck Inside My Mind

Solija Mitzi Rian

Proud

Nicola Brayan

Live and Laugh

Moses Ojo

ISSUE 32 POETRY | FICTION | CNF | ART + PHOTOGRAPHY | MASTHEAD

Art on this page, top to bottom: Proud by Nicola Brayan, Tunnel Vision Tendencies by Ellie Wardman, and The Returning Fly by Solija Mitzi Rian.

This website is not an official publication of the University of Arkansas – Fort Smith, and its content does not represent the positions, policies or views of UAFS or its officers.

©2021 All Rights Reserved.