Contents

For Empty Spaces
Regis Louis

Entropy
Liam Trumble

Culled from the Flock
Deborah Rocheleau

Searching for Divinity
Madeleine Richey

From Pillars to Dust
Madeleine Richey

As Best I Could Do
Hoda Fakhari

In Your Absence
Emma Croushore

Contemplations
Sarah Kronz

The Shadow of Paris
Anika Maiberger

The Liffey
Kara Wellman

Memories of Home
Audrey Lee

Rind
Jackie Vega

The Beauty in Fracturing
Taylor Woosley

Butcher Paper
Casandra Robledo

Human Scavenger
Devin Prasatek

Babel Was a Second Eden
Luke McCusker

The Painting in Gallery 26
Sydney Crago

Palimpsest
Sofia Io Celli

Transposing
Ayla Maisey

Rind

The small orange and me,
                meticulous in my peeling,

we have an agreement:
I will take her apart with delicate fingers

and she will open to me
the bitterness of adoration.

Her pith will settle in my palms
and her oil will flavor my wrists.

We will measure our love
by the circumference of my bite,

by the pulp etched like a hard memory
between my teeth.

But I will only practice
                on the shoulder blades of others;

I will leave one half
                on the table unspent.

Because we both know how long
the heart will wait for a familiar taste,

how much pressure
                is required to break the skin,

                                how quickly the juice bursts.

About The Author

Jackie Vega is a senior writing major and French and English minor at Grand Valley State University. She is the editor in chief of Fishladder, Grand Valley’s undergraduate literature and arts journal, and she also works in the university’s library as a research consultant. After graduation, she plans to pursue an MLS as well as an MFA in poetry.