Issue 31 – Applause Journal

Issue 31

Poetry

We Called It Snow

Alicia Combs

Drifting

Ava Raccaro

Womb to Woman

Briana Stone

Chess

Eliana Franklin

Condiments and other poems

Mara Batt

Everyday Embroidery

Nobel Chan

Stick and Poke and Other Poems

Rachel Valente

Ekphrasis in the Louvre
October 2014 and other poems

Celeste Briefs

from We Called it Snow

My hometown was hills; sledding,
down clinging to plastic rims,
of lids taken from toy boxes.
We called them sleds.

Or for sitting on skateboards in the heat
and racing down. Tumbling off
when we reached the bottom.
Elbows scraped and bruised;
a familiar satisfying sting.

from Everyday Embroidery

Today the way the breaking sun
Slants through the window glass
And shines to make the colors sing
And stirs the dust to make them dance;
When dawn comes to my morning eye
And draws me out of dusty dreams,
I think I see the world unstitched
Laid before me with broken seams.

From variations on the lakes

Tell me,
Where do all the poets go to die? Someplace haunted, shaded in willow trees and susurrating grasses, holding their muses close, loves heavy enough to drown with.

Those lakes of mystery where gossamer mists swept like silken nightgowns, crystalline cardigans, over softly quilted Windermere peaks, like young bodies
laid to rest, where

FICTION

The Notebook She Wrote
for Adaline

Alicia Combs

Proud to be
an American

Emma Hill

Raspberry-Flavored
Body of Christ

Fabrizio Lacarra Ramirez

Postmortem Menagerie

Julia Dath

from Proud to be an American

Chris woke up late Sundays and holidays, which gave Lee time to make tea. He microwaved the water; they didn’t own a tea kettle. It didn’t really boil, but the steam drifted up after four minutes or so, licking his clean-shaven cheeks with welcome softness. If Chris had eaten leftovers the day before, the steam carried a faint smell: barbecue, marinara, greasy undertones of shredded cheese melted on nachos. But when Lee dipped the teabag into the mug, the steam-smell altered to heady spices, soft herbs. Quiet flavors. Lee kept the tea packets in his room, next to the Bible his grandparents had bought when he was born. Its pages, tinged in gold, had remained in the same pristine condition for eighteen years today.

from Raspberry-Flavored Body of Christ

Archie stood on the altar of Sabbath Morning Catholic Church and looked down at his hands. It was a Sunday morning in July and he was gripping the long ornate handle of a candlestick. He was inspecting the color of his knuckles; they grew paler every time he brought his gaze up to the congregation. The Father had asked everyone to stand up. His hands rose towards the tinted glass section of the ceiling, not tinted enough to prevent the rays of heat from invading the room and bearing down on the altar boy.

from Postmortem Menagerie

There hasn’t even been enough time for the dust to settle in my late mother’s bedroom when Tyler I clear it out. It’s a living tomb of who she was: chestnut furniture purchased thirty odd years ago from somebody’s front yard, and boxes with some missing lids stacked in peculiar disarray that create a maze of memories, both significant and utterly useless to me. But the tomb isn’t even allowed three days of rest before it’s unearthed again, the upheaval of her private space a necessity in abandoning a house that was sold while her bedsheets still smelled of that all-too-familiar thick perfume she spritzed each morning.

CNF

Inside Out

Allison Palmer

L.R.N.

Julia Amber

The Speech Pathologist

Pearl Cooper

Finding Tiffany

Tiffany Bankes

from Inside Out

I threw up in the bushes outside the hospital the day my sister was born. I didn’t stomp my feet and demand that my mom shove her back up there or refuse to go hold her. I didn’t hop up and down and beg my dad to bring me inside so I could kiss my brand-new best friend. No tantrums, no joy. Just vomit. I stopped right next to the E.R. entrance, put my hands on my dimpled kindergartener knees, and barfed. My dad looked down at me with a crease between his eyebrows as I wiped my mouth on the sleeve of my sweater. He knelt next to me and patted my back, checking my forehead for fever. Yes, I feel better now. He shrugged and took my hand as we walked through the doors. Even then, my body knew the things my head didn’t. This is gateway love. My sister was my first. She will probably be my last. Maybe we have to empty out parts ourselves to make room for everything new.

from The Speech Pathologist

I did not know I had a lisp until I was seven years old, when the speech pathologist took me out of my second-grade classroom and made me read to her from a spiral bound easel pad that squeaked when the pages turned. The speech pathologist had a small mouth and a tight, pinched face. When she spoke, she enunciated each word with aggressive precision. She kept flipping back to a page full of cartoon stars, kept asking me what I was looking at. Stars. Stars. Stars. I was old enough to know that stars didn’t look like they did in the illustration: that they don’t have five points, and that some of them aren’t even yellow.

from Finding TIffany

A slow, quiet suburban neighborhood. Neatly manicured lawns line both sides of the road, each one boasting a classic white mailbox with a little red flag. As a child, this neighborhood was nothing short of idyllic. The asphalt ridge that contoured my front lawn to the street served me well throughout the years. See, the curb provided me with a sense of safety, security. From that vantage point, I could see the humble happenings on our block while still remaining cloistered. Sometimes I’d watch the neighborhood kids play in the streets, but I was too shy to join them. I could sit for hours watching the neighbors rake their leaves, carry in groceries, and pick up the daily batch of bills they couldn’t afford.

Art + Photography

Mother Nature

Stephanie Burgos

Honey Dew and other photographs

Ayesha Sultana

November 7, 2020

John Mazzetta

Wishing Me Well

Melissa Crisan

Artist's Statement, John Mazzetta

I headed to Denver’s Capitol Hill on November 6th, 2020 only intending to document Americans’ reaction to Election Day. I was met with a lively, joyous atmosphere that seemed to have been long lost to the despair of 2020. As I walked just a block away from the commotion, I found myself in a starkly different environment. One that struck me as being totally tranquil; a world, and its inhabitants, seemingly oblivious to the history being made nearby.

ISSUE 31 POETRY | FICTION | CNF | ART + PHOTOGRAPHY | MASTHEAD

Art on this page, top to bottom: Mother Nature by Stephanie Burgos, Wishing me well by Melissa Crisan, Purity by Ayesha Sultana, and part of John Mazzetta’s November 7, 2020 series.

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