the NASSAU LITERARY REVIEW

SPRING 2021 “Into the Clearing” DEAR READERS

As our world begins to make its way back to a sort of normalcy after the catastrophe wreaked by the COVID-19 pandemic, we find ourselves moving “From the Crucible” and at last “Into the Clearing.” Perhaps it is the sense of relief, of contemplation, and of new beginnings brought by this transition that brought us to recognize the same sort of movement recur in the pieces we received as we put together this issue.

A clearing offers respite—the opportunity to ruminate on events of the past and come to a better understanding of them and of ourselves. This reflective spirit comes forth in the symbolic, self-revealing imagery in Sandra Yang’s “Bioluminescent” and “self-entanglement” as well as in pieces such as Batya Stein’s “On Cleaning Out My Grandparents’ Apartment,” in which the narrator sorts through memories of past relationships along with the physical articles in their grandparents’ apartment and reflects on what it means to be understood, thought to be understood, and reshaped in others’ memories; in Jeremy Pulmano’s “it is one thing to keep a garden,” in which the love and generosity of a grandmother is remembered, in the wake of her loss, through the flowers she cared for; and in Grady Trexler’s “Weltschmerz,” a poem aching in the aftermath of loss and mourning—spoken through a plaintive young voice forced to confront the irrevocability of death.

The Nassau Literary Review is published semi-annually by students of Princeton Such a clearing, and such reflections, also brings to light violence and injustice, both University. Reproduction of any material in this magazine, except for purposes personal and collective in scope, and commissions us to confront them. The pandemic, of review or with the written permission of the editors, is strictly prohibited. and the differing ways in which it has affected people of different socioeconomic statuses, has made the inequities in our society starkly visible; some of the roots Copyright © 2021, The Nassau Literary Review, ISSN 0883-2374 and consequences of these inequalities—as well as the resilience of the people living through such oppression—are explored in Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust, reviewed by Meera Sastry. This moment of clarity and accountability can drive us to action, and, perhaps, to redemption, of the sort which the old man in Cassandra James’ “The Road” finds after reaching a clearing of his own, with an unexpected glimpse into the consequences of his past actions.

Yet because and in spite of the responsibilities which confront us in this clearing, this moment has also allowed for great joy. From the visceral, tangible sweetness represented in Emma Mohrmann’s “sugar on my tongue” to the frame-captured, unbridled happiness in Julia Walton’s “Dog’s First Snow,” we are introduced and re- introduced to all the loveliness that has found us after the storm. Perhaps the most important one of these is that we now have the strength and ability to build a new future: the “Genesis” of the cover art of this issue, also created by Emma Mohrmann, as we reach through the haze.

Thank you for joining us in this clearing. We hope that this moment in our history, and the pieces contained in this issue, bring you the best of what a movement into the Cover art “Genesis” by Emma Mohrmann clearing can offer—rest, reflection, confrontation, and hope.

MINA YU Editor-in-Chief, The Nassau Literary Review Prose Readers Art Team Nancy Diallo ’22 Sydney Peng ’22 Kate Kaplan ’22 Sandra Yang ’22 STAFF Megan Pan ’22 Fizzah Arshad ’24 Batya Stein ’22 Juliette Carbonnier ’24 AnneMarie Caballero ’23 Natali Kim ’24 Eva Keker ’23 Kathleen Li ’24 Mariana Bravo ’24 Briony Zhao ’24 Aditi Desai ’24 Zoe Montague ’24 Zoe Montague ’24 MEMBERS Rui-Yang Peng ’24 Staff Writers Bryan Wang ’24 Meera Sastry ’23 Kelsey Wang ’24 Aditi Desai ’24 Eva Vesely ’24 Ben Guzovsky ’23 Katie Rohrbaugh ’24 Poetry Readers Kelsey Wang ’24 Sydney Peng ’22 Eva Vesely ’24 Editor-in-Chief Art Editor Emily Weis ’22 Mina Yu ’22 Emma McMahon ’21 Andrew Matos ’23 Community Engagement Abigail McRea ’23 Director Managing Editor Assistant Prose Editor Meera Sastry ’23 Emily Perez ’23 Noel Peng ’22 Cameron Dames ’23 Caroline Subbiah ’23 Ivy Wang ’23 Historian Assistant Managing Editor Assistant Poetry Editor Akhila Bandlora ’24 Benjy Jude ’23 Ashira Shirali ’23 Chloe Satenberg ’24 Ben Guzovsky ’23 Uma Menon ’24 Director of Social Media Editor-in-Chief Emeritus Assistant Art Editor Liv Ragan ’24 & Nass Lit Online Julia M. Walton ’21 Alison Hirsch ’23 Silvana Parra Rodriguez ’24 Cassandra James ’23 Katie Rohrbaugh ’24 Prose Editor Essay Editor Mollika Jai Singh ’24 Webmaster Benjy Jude ’23 Cammie Lee ’22 Cathy Teng ’22 Copyeditors Poetry Editor Assistant Essay Editor Abigail McRea ’23 Design Editor Beatrix Bondor ’22 Uma Menon ’24 Uma Menon ’24 Riya Singh ’23 20 Drew Pugliese ­— Audience New 22 Emma McMahon — Untitled 2 37 Cordelia Lowry — Zayed TABLE OF 39 Cordelia Lowry — Al Mare POETRY 46 Cary Moore — my mother 57 Drew Pugliese — Site New 11 Sal Kang — first lunar new year away from home, i wear a red sweater just to feel something 61 Emma Mohrmann — sugar on my tongue 17 Jeremy Pulmano — it is one thing to keep a garden 64 Briony Zhao — desktop < view < blindfold 21 Grady Trexler ­— Weltschmerz 72 Julian Gottfried — Budding By Night 38 Rodrigo Pichardo ­— Postcard. 79 Sandra Yang — self-entanglement 44 Henry Wright — To Find a Home 58 Henry Wright — Cross-Eyed WHAT WE'RE LOVING 62 Lara Katz — Supervision 18 Aditi Desai — When Breath Becomes Air 63 Jimin Kang — Dutch Oven 59 Megan Pan — Edge of Midnight (Midnight Sky Remix) 76 Julia M. Walton — Dog's First Snow 77 Batya Stein — Ted Lasso

PROSE ESSAYS 12 Batya Stein ­— On Cleaning Out My Grandparents' 31 Meera Sastry — "We Are the Bridge": History as Prologue Apartment or, the subjectivity of memory in Julie Dash's Daughters of the Dust

23 Sierra Stern — Vanity Plate 40 Ben Guzovsky — Coloring Outside the Lines: The Secrets Maps Hide 47 Cassandra James — The Road 53 Katie Rohrbaugh — The Gaze of History through William 65 Anonymous — Charley Moon Jr. Chases a Star Logan's "Fall of Byzantium" 73 Cassandra James — Waterproof

ART 10 Sandra Yang — Bioluminescent 16 Emma McMahon — Untitled CONTENTS first lunar new year bioluminescent away from home, i wear a red sweater just to feel something

& contemplate binge-buying packets of frozen Sal Kang dumplings. this colorless neighborhood stays quiet, & for the first time in forever, i believe the legend

—every silent town will be wolfed down by a monster at night. the year is starting like a white lie, the porcelain-pale color of a funeral, & the day sort of

feels like a birthday all your friends forgot about. the people back at home taught me that when you love someone, you need to be close to them

by baking the moon into a cake & eating it. by that logic, i don’t love this city—i struggle to ascribe homeliness to its drivers & how they mean it when

they tell you to look both ways before crossing the road. meanwhile, on the other side of this country, the elders of chinatown learn how to report a hate

crime & wish each other good health with a little less breath. this colorless neighborhood only sees color in their wrinkled cheeks. every hand i know how to

hold is too far away. i get my hongbaos via bank transfer & watch half a dragon dance on youtube & mistake the creak of an upstairs bed for a distant

firecracker. at night i dream of beijing & in my dream Sandra Yang there are no streetlights, tinting the moon’s hue piss -blue. there are no shadows slicing my heart into halves.

10 The Nassau Literary Review Spring 2021 11 Batya Stein phrases “sentimental value” and certain way, the objects somehow “only child” and “the importance of sum to whatever it is that makes On Cleaning Out My preserving family memories.” me myself. I wonder if I keep them because they are tangible Did my grandparents ever look up fragments of the past, or because Grandparents' Apartment and realize they were being slowly I have always been comforted buried by memories? by the idea that I am knowable, that my presence has left an Part of me resents how this image impression substantial enough to The apartment looks like it’s been puncturing the silence before it can of the apartment in shambles is be transcribed. ransacked by a band of thieves be consigned to oblivion. Across subsuming the version of it stored who forgot to take anything with from her, my father tries to make in my head from childhood, when it * * * them when they left, an ocean order from chaos. A pile of papers was still a place where people lived of yellowing newspapers and grows beside him, waiting to be and read picture books in armchairs Nathan pulls me away from the unopened cable bills threatening to ferried back to New Jersey where and public radio played constantly crowd and into a stairwell. It’s the obliterate the distinction between in all likelihood they will remain in the background. Part of me first time I’ve seen him in person kitchen and bedroom. “Nixon unread for another twenty years wants to leave and never return. since we broke up over a year Indicted!” reads the Times article until my sister initiates a clean-out A louder part wants to open every ago, and I have no idea what he perched atop what appears to be of the family room closet. book on the shelf and know exactly could want to tell me. He explains, every lab report my grandfather what my grandmother thought the earnestly, that his teacher (who’s ever graded. My childhood “It was a mistake to come here, first time that she read them. never met me) has helped him drawings are still scotch-taped to we should hire someone to get see that he had dominated our the walls, confident crayon lines rid of everything. Most of it’s junk * * * relationship, projecting his likes depicting realities I can no longer anyway, and it’s not like you have and dislikes and expectations onto quite inhabit. (Why is the fish the spare time to come back and The orange bandana that everyone me. I think he tells me this by way wearing a crown?) sort through all of it,” my mother signed after my freshman of apology, but he’s gone before I says suddenly. From where I am orientation trip tells me that I can articulate to either of us how My mother clears the answering waiting in the kitchen, I can predict am “thoughtful”, “relatable”, and deeply this rewriting shakes me. I machine in short, anxious jabs, the my father’s response more than “surprisingly chill”. I keep it in remain on the staircase, staring at same spam message repeatedly hear it, something containing the the folder where I store all of my nothing, confused by the lack of mementos, which mostly consist power I have to align his version of of playbills and things that other me, circa junior year, with the one people have said about me, that I know so well. writing me into being. Sitting on my bedroom floor rifling through Sure, he had been the one to or, the subjectivity of memories, I wonder if, arranged a ask me out, always the more memory

12 The Nassau Literary Review Spring 2021 13 forcefully opinionated of the two "I TRACE A The story I remember revolves a letter, telling him in no uncertain of us, but I had reciprocated, around a guy newly arrived in terms that his story has no right to bantered endlessly and shared FINGER BACK heaven. After reuniting with his cast doubt onto my memories of my insecurities and aspirations, wife, he tries to arrange a visit the past. Anyway, I will tell him, I convinced him to watch Gilmore ALONG MY with his beloved grandmother, know your story is false because Girls and Parks and Recreation, MEMORIES long deceased. Her social calendar the happiness in my grandmother’s listened to him name things about is bursting, and she brushes him voice when I called her every Friday his relationship with his parents BUT CAN'T off week after week. Wandering before Shabbat was too deep to be that I don’t think he’d ever told PINPOINT THE after a concert, the grandson at all situational. anyone else. accidentally discovers that his PLACE WHERE grandmother has cancelled I imagine that he would shrug and He was the one who knew that on that night’s dinner to hook up say something like—I don’t know why my seventeenth birthday I would OUR STORIES backstage with Frank Sinatra. She you’re getting so defensive about want a party filled with friends DIVERGE." explains, in a pitying yet matter- this, or—I’m a famous writer and I’m but he also knew exactly where of-fact sort of way, that her not sure why you think I care. I’d be when I disappeared from grandson had, of course, been the said party, mildly overwhelmed by most important part of her old age Or perhaps I’ll catch him on a people, because the knowledge that but he must understand that there particularly sympathetic day, everyone would show up was all I’d had not been many other people and he’ll sit down and dash off a really needed in the first place. left in her life at that point to love. response—maybe, he’ll tell me, your memories always were your own. I want to call Nathan back in and * * * Most of the time, I am able to ask him when, in his mind, had ignore the part of my brain where quiet turned into submissive, and The summer we worked in this story is lodged, whispering go-with-the-flow into the idea that sleepaway camp and knew no one insidiously that maybe the love he had been molding me in his but each other, Sasha, Maya and in my life that has seemed most image. I trace a finger back along I spent long Saturday afternoons unconditional has been given by my memories but can’t pinpoint rolling in the grass, taking turns people who had no one better the place where our stories diverge. reading from the book of short to give it to. This is irrelevant, I Shaping myself from the assurance stories Maya had brought. I’ve answer—the love was nonetheless that others can see me feels forgotten all but one of them, real and reciprocated, manifest in abruptly inadequate, like looking a testament to the fact that it so many everyday gestures the way down in the middle of building a remains more unsettling than the best sorts of caring are. house and realizing that instead of most pieces of media I have bricks, I am holding only the idea consumed that were explicitly Sometimes, though, I am tempted of what a house should be. marketed as disquieting. to hunt down the author and write

14 The Nassau Literary Review Spring 2021 15 Emma McMahon it is one thing to keep a garden

for Lola Tita

and another to water the three potted plants on the shoe rack, stalk of baby bamboo pricked by cactus and shaded by heartleaf, all of it garden enough.

it is one thing to eat and another to feast, my grandmother always our savior, erasing the thin of our wrists with pizza on paper plates and purple ice cream in coffee mugs it is

one thing to write an elegy

and another to see through a screen the thin blanket outlining her body

and another to feel the stick of gloss from the photos at my thumbs

and another to let the tears run freely into the black mask I am wearing it is

one thing to touch the bursting crown of orchids and lilies by her side

and another to carry a garden back home

untitled Jeremy Pulmano

16 The Nassau Literary Review Spring 2021 17 Aditi Desai WHAT WE'RE LOVING: WINTER BREAK 2020 EDITION When Breath Becomes Air

I initially picked When Breath Although many expect this Becomes Air up because it was memoir to dissect Dr. Kalanithi’s a memoir written by a medical decades-long journey of balancing doctor who studied literature a multitude of passions, he as an undergraduate student— instead beautifully—and painfully— what an interesting combination! chronicles his last year of life Though an expert in the natural after being diagnosed with sciences, Dr. Kalanithi brought stage IV lung cancer. With this with him a natural ability to weave rather unexpected diagnosis, Dr. Courtesy of Dr. Paul Kalanithi philosophical thoughts into his Kalanithi was suddenly forced to elegant and intentional prose. A confront the very questions he young Indian-American writer, had once investigated in literature. husband, and father finishing As cancer further invaded his life up his last year of neurosurgery as a neurosurgeon, he chose to residency, Dr. Kalanithi mirrored turn towards words and books many of the values—resilience, for comfort. And, though science faith, and courage—that I have and biology once prominently been raised with and continue to informed his understanding of the when the future, no longer a ladder into his movements as he performs project into my life. He pursued world, Dr. Kalanithi realizes that toward your goals in life, flattens his last surgery in the operating both English Literature and this understanding will evolve as out into a perpetual present?” room, afraid that he will never Medicine, completing graduate he is intimately confronted with return. We recognize his bravery degrees in each respective field. death. He realizes that it is the When Breath Becomes Air has in choosing to have a child with his Though he initially studied humanities—writing, reading, and challenged me to reflect on what wife as a means to nurture a new life literature to investigate the larger literature—which give him space it means to turn to literature to as his own begins to weaken. We’re questions surrounding human to unpack his uncertainties and make sense of uncertainty—to put face-to-face with the rawness, mortality and biological life—what grapple with his identity as a doctor seek meaning in words when the pain, and beauty of it all—of how it means to keep living in the and patient. With this realization, world you once knew is rendered Dr. Kalanithi investigates mortality, face of death—he quickly realized he traces his ongoing battle with meaningless. Readers are led first as a young student eager to that the best way to formulate cancer and his understanding of through Dr. Kalanithi’s many understand the possibilities of answers for such questions was human life, pushing readers to ask battles—whether they be physical human life and then as a patient by practicing medicine. themselves “what they would do or emotional. We see fear weaved battling a terminal illness.

18 The Nassau Literary Review Spring 2021 19 Weltschmerz

E, we filled the pews, suits all borrowed from our fathers, ill-fitting and scratchy, singing the hymns together.

The words we borrowed from our mothers. I don’t remember anything I said except the hymns we sang together. In that second floor classroom

I don’t remember what was said, just the feeling of something missing from that second floor classroom, and how Frau was even quieter than usual,

as if she was missing something. I stayed quiet for a week. Frau was even quieter. We had learned all that we could learn,

so I stayed quiet for a week, egg yolk heavy in the air — we had learned the greatest lesson of our lives. We hadn’t known before that we could cry.

It hung heavy in the air And wouldn’t leave us alone. We hadn’t known before that we could die. We did the best we could with what we had.

It wouldn’t leave us alone, Audience New ill-fitting and scratchy in our skin. We did the best we could, Drew Pugliese E. We filled the pews.

Grady Trexler

20 The Nassau Literary Review Spring 2021 21 Emma McMahon

Sierra Stern Vanity Plate

The highway was backed up far into wedding of a Bar Mitzvah ten years the horizon, and David’s childhood prior, a hologram that hovered car, touch-starved from his four over the sunroof like a taxi light. years on the east coast, gracelessly swallowed each intermittent stretch More miserably, had any sittersby of concrete afforded him by the (there was certainly no passing to Honda at his front. be done at the moment) glanced at David’s cupholder while David liked motion. At his university attempting to chance a better (which he still avoided, with look at this curious hologram— modest vehemence, mentioning which was not yet technologically by name to everyone except possible, but the universe made potential employers), he’d run club its merry exceptions for David— track, relishing in the way running they might have noticed the eight posture bent his body, muddling dollar coffee lodged there, padded his geometrically lean silhouette. by the wax paper bag of artisan It was unfortunate enough that pastry crumbs. Eight dollars, he’d he was stuck in traffic—wrapped reasoned at the time, was not so in a soft grey sweater bought much to pay for the dark ichor for him as a parting gift from his of creativity, especially if he was nanny his senior year of high going to finish his screenplay, an school—but to be stuck in traffic irreverent detective comedy. At in the understated luxury car of present it was forty pages long, his adolescence… the whole scene and it needed to be a hundred likely projected to every poor before eight o’ clock. schmuck on the highway a golden hologram of the handwoven, (He had a pitch meeting. It was an silk-embroidered tallit from his extremely big deal.) untitled

22 The Nassau Literary Review Spring 2021 23 David presumed every restless He contrived, with his head against his skull. They’d written his major The yellow days were Nissan driver or frazzled Ford the steering wheel, of an idea for a where his last name ought to rejuvenating, and with each owner was thinking the same thing. play. have been—Economics in place wash of flaming sun, David’s east Blessed was this gangly brunet to of Ecker. David Economics—what coast melancholy burned away. be wrapped in flattering, expensive EXT. - FREEWAY (HIGHWAY? New you’d fill in for the text contact of He wasn’t suited for seasons. wool, to have all this time to guzzle Haven had ruined him, evidently.) a class acquaintance, the perfect The humidity fluffed his hair espresso and use its energizing - DAY pseudonym for somebody as into a column of brown, and powers for absolutely nothing at anonymous and predictable as the his complexion was perpetually all, his unwon exorbitance likely A man sits in standstill traffic. His shell-corpse of a worker bee. He condemned to the wintry shade reminding all those surrounding audience is comprised of the cars even lacked the sense of humor to of white that suited him least. He him of a spoiled and sickly juvenile flanking his bumpers and sides; keep the botched diploma. watched his classmates file out of king—might his crooked nose be the each viewer has paid to sit in High Holiday services with piously result of some haughty inbreeding? traffic, has paid to be traffic while When his accounting internship sparkling eyes and floral pinks (A rather antisemitic thought to the singular actor sits in his car in D.C. offered David a permanent breaking beneath their skin and have, but traffic makes monsters and simply goes fucking ballistic: a position at the end of the summer, felt like he’d been domesticated out of us all, David sympathized one man shit-show, on wheels, in- he turned it down and sought by iceless seventy-degree winters. to himself.) the-round. refuge in his parents’ house in At least he was fast. A mutated southern California, where he lap dog couldn’t run like he ran, The espresso was good, though. It ACTOR crashed on the couch in spite of not without keeling over dead was from a place across town with (meltdown) the queen-sized bed and Tarantino with four stubby legs in the air a condensed menu and not enough posters still inhabiting his room. and both pink eyes crusted shut. seating, which was why David had BLACKOUT. been on his way to a completely David brought cardboard to his different coffee shop famous for To be clear, David had no degree in mouth and came away with his its fat, cushioned arm chairs when Creative Writing, or even English. lips painted in whatever dregs he found himself locked in rush He’d had the good sense to suffer coated the rim of his coffee cup. He hour congestion. It all seemed through four years of Economics was left with nothing to entertain kind of silly now. As much as David while slyly filling the rest of his time himself with except tissues and liked the idea of writing in a cozy with Fiction classes and meetings a packet of gum (which wasn’t café, etching his best ideas into for campus literary journals whose "Up until the very appealing now that David recycled brown napkins and empty submission deadlines he’d miss had washed his tongue in coffee). coffee cups (nevermind his silver with the light of his computer clock days of his He had the option of listening to Macbook), he dreaded visibility. blue against his face. History was the radio, plus access to all the Paralyzed by his fellow coffee shop repeating itself, it seemed, as David graduation, playlists floated from his phone to patrons, he hardly ever returned couldn’t possibly churn out half a his car via bluetooth. to his car with more than half screenplay in the middle of traffic. David's life had a page of new material. Worse He put on his classic rock mix. It yet, his childhood home failed to Up until the day of his graduation, been steered was carefully curated to incite a inspire him, and so he was locked David’s life compass had been by the poles of chorus of “Yes, David” or “Oh fuck in a screenwriter’s purgatory where steered by the poles of stability yes” whenever he was selected his only real progress took place and substance. He read the words stability and by his inner circle of other pale, in a lengthy notes app filled with on his diploma, and felt a sensation wiry Econ majors to score their punchy one-liners. like a gust of wind slicing through substance." kickbacks and study breaks.

24 The Nassau Literary Review Spring 2021 25 On first was a dazy Beatles Immediately, David discovered that always ended up brainstorming to him. He felt like he reminded love song—typically a powerful the subtle synth from his oldie’s names of either characters that them of somebody, maybe Michael melancholic force among David’s ballad was actually sustained already existed or famous actors: Cera, or a kid they used to babysit. (mostly single) friends. David honking from the white Acura at “Peter Parker”, “Owen Wilson”…one Pure suburbia, or something like it. crooned. His voice was nice when his rear; the driver in front of him time he’d managed to grow heavily Being desired in this way was bad it didn’t break. had traveled all of ten feet forward. attached to the name “Chris for David’s ego, so he typically tried Columbus” for an entire hour to avoid it as best he could, but he Unlike most of his friends, David had “The illusion of progress,” David before it hit him. David was at the was getting tired of sleeping at escaped perennial singlitude. His mumbled to himself as he lifted his point where he was considering his parents’ place, and waking up brunet curls were typically in high foot off the brake, and thought it just calling him Guy or Man for next to a girl would be a refreshing demand, at least for a couple weeks sounded so good that he sent it to minimalism’s sake. change of scenery. Her name was at a time (or until his next haircut). himself in a text message. It might’ve Carli, with an “i”. This element of impermanence been a good foundation for a He tapped through his phone, and was lucky for David because he monologue in his screenplay, though thought about calling somebody Carlos, thought David, testing out suspected himself to be a terrible he wasn’t sure who should say it. to pass the time. His Econ friends a new name for his protagonist. Up person. He had ambitions, strong probably weren’t busy, but he until that point David had always ones, of being a family man one day, hadn’t spoken to them much since imagined him to be a white guy, but the steps to get there seemed graduation. He could call Harry to not completely dissimilar-looking harrowing. Love would be his "This tell him he wasn’t going to be able to himself (except not Jewish Catcher in the Rye, except instead to make his deadline, but David and with a physique that didn’t of developing a taste for celebrity element of was still holding out hope on that resemble a flesh-colored candy assassination, he’d go crazy in other impermanence one. His parents would be a little cane). But Guy could be Carlos. ways—become stalking, snooping too happy to speak with him— He’d break barriers, monologuing restraining order bait or launch a was lucky for they could hardly trap him into a in two languages and have the revenge plot against womankind conversation in their own home— audience in stitches by taking following an atomic heartbreak. David because and the dating app girl he was cracks at white guys like David. talking to didn’t seem like the type David kept on singing while he he suspected for impromptu phone calls. He tried to translate some of lowered his mirror, just in case he Guy’s one-liners into Spanglish, looked handsome doing it. himself to Maybe David was making but only got so far as, “I’d say the be a terrible assumptions because she was killer saw rojo, but his file says He was also searching for a glimmer pretty—not just fashionably he’s colorblind.” of malevolence—sanguine specks person." attractive like the overgrown street swimming in the blacks of his urchin thing David had going on— David pinched himself hard on eyes or an arched brow just steep but the timeless rendition of hot the cheek, and decided he should enough to connote wickedness. The main character didn’t have that Botticelli and Mick Jagger stick to what he knew—the folly of Save for a colony of stray eyebrow a name yet—everything David could both agree on. To be honest, insufferable white-guydom and all- hairs that had begun to migrate thought of seemed way too kitschy. David was unenthusiastic about around idiotship. towards his ears (giving his face a He’d thought about AJ or Sid, the date they’d scheduled for that downturned, sad-clownish look), but those sounded like character Saturday. On the phone he was The Acura had moved into the he found nothing incriminating, names, way too gimmicky. fairly uninspiring, but he found lane on his right, and David could but the song was ruined at that Whenever he tried to think of that, when he actually met girls like see now that the person behind point, and he turned off the radio. something long and rhythmic —he this, they became oddly endeared the wheel was about his age,

26 The Nassau Literary Review Spring 2021 27 knocking his forehead against have in dentists’ waiting rooms, things—work and home, right and basically just idealized caricatures wrists that hung off the top of the and then traffic might actually wrong… what are your parameters, of himself. What did he really have steering wheel. David hadn’t even move. Luckily, we all do our parts O’ Audi Driver? to offer, except a background thought to be exasperated about to make sure that never happens. in mathematics? Maybe all his the slogging mob of cars he’d It’s the most perfect system in the He’s opening compartments now, films would somehow follow the been swept into. Exasperation, he world. It’s real Fordism—none of whatever compartments he can Fibonacci sequence. (He’d only supposed, was a right afforded to that assembly line shit. find. I can tell right now by the way cast actors with golden ratio those hard working Americans in he’s reaching across the cupholder faces, and then he’d catch serious possession of jobs, who paid rent (sighs) Each day I become more that he’s digging around the glove Hollywood flack for kickstarting a and drove leased white Acuras convinced that I went to college compartment, probably flipping movement of mathematics-based instead of Audis. just to learn how to sit in traffic, through insurance papers and eugenics in film.) What if he named absorbing the virtues of patience registration he’s never laid eyes his detective f(x), except he spelled EXT. - FREEWAY, SECOND LANE and time management from two on before. This is a period of great it phonetically like Effovex. FROM THE LEFT - DAY, GETTING hour lectures and last minute papers. discovery for him. He’s learning TO BE NIGHT that the official color of his car is And poor Harry, who’d heard about For us more devout traffic Daytona Grey Pearl. He’s learning David’s screenwriting aspirations A man in a white Acura sits with participants, there is a certain that closing the glove compartment and offered him a pitch meeting his head against the steering level of release involved. With my is a lot harder than opening it. He’s with his father’s production wheel in bumper-to-bumper traffic. car as my confessional, I shout, learning that he isn’t very good at company. Harry knew David from He’s just managed to escape from groan, weep, and honk the day’s being alone. high school, where he was known his disadvantaged position behind grievances into the air, allowing as smart, reliable, and a little bit the worst driver in the world, them to absolve themselves in a David had begun to play games with funny. Little did Harry know that, some schmuck in an Audi. Finally cloud of smog. When I return to my the license plate numbers, messing sometime in the last four years, liberated from Audi-bumper hell, humble apartment, for which I pay around with the digits for fun and David had molted all those shining he fumes about the day he’s had. the rent in its entirety, I’m positively converting the letters into numbers qualities. Now he was content to washed clean. It helps that the for an added layer of complexity. let another deadline creep past and ACURA GUY heat controls in my car don’t work, He was good with numbers, good abandon his ambitions of working so the whole experience comes off enough for that D.C. job, good in entertainment, which had It’s bullshit. The day is twenty-four like a little slice of hell. enough to study Econ at one of proven themselves too uncertain hours, and I spend three of them the best schools in the country. It to be rewarding. each day in traffic while mine and (looks to DAVID) only took him a minute to convert every car in Los Angeles sit nose 7AHP459 into fifty, or zero, which to tail, barking and sniffing each I pity the driver on my right. Aside he liked even better. Numbers were other’s asses like a pack of wild from being the most inconsiderate safe and known. He never had to fucking dogs. It’s madness. In three bastard on the freeway, it’s clear find numbers like he did words. On hours, the radio laps itself six times. that traffic will never mean for him the east coast, screenwriting had I’ll hear a song in the morning, and what it’s come to mean for me. seemed exotic and exciting and by that afternoon I’ll know every He seems more bewildered than stimulating. Here in Los Angeles, "He's learning word. Sometimes, I think my real anything else, scrambling for ways he was the least productive that he isn't profession is filling in gaps on the to pass the time when us veterans wannabe at any given coffee shop, freeway. Without me there’d be an know that the fun of it is to embrace another milquetoast writer with very good at empty square of tar, like the blank limbo. Then again, limbo’s only fun nothing to bring to the table but piece on those sliding puzzles they when you’re trapped between two milquetoast protagonists that were being alone."

28 The Nassau Literary Review Spring 2021 29 The car in front of him rolled It was bordered in red. White, forward, and just when it had uppercase letters spelled traveled ten feet, just when David Harvard University. expected it to stop, it didn’t, and doubled that distance before David stared, watched the letters halting behind a stagnant red slide closer. He couldn’t believe bumper. Traffic was letting up. it. The Acura was reversing in the David put up his mirrors. He wasn’t middle of the freeway, reversing too far from home now. right into him. “Hey!” he shouted, throwing his body against the horn. A little ways below the raised “Hey!” In spite of his fear, it was "We Are the Bridge": coil of the freeway, a billboard perversely pleasurable to know for a show he’d been meaning that, in taking down his assailant’s to watch hung over the sparse insurance he’d get the opportunity History as Prologue treeline. It was Emmy-nominated, to flash his wallet—blue and velcro, the billboard said, for David’s patterned with school-spirited consideration, created by some Bulldogs. Otherwise, though, he in Julie Dash's guy named Michael Math. No, was afraid. Michael Mathis. The surname had been partially obscured by a black So afraid that he flinched, Daughters of the Dust reef of trees. flattening himself against his seat and bringing his feet to his chest. Meera Sastry David glanced at the clock. It was His feet that had been floating only six. Eight was beginning to uselessly above the breaks the seem manageably far off. entire time.

It was necessary to turn his His ears filled with hot static and Daughters of the Dust is a film which was the first feature film attention back to the road, because a balloon of white attacked his to watch slowly. Director Julie directed by a Black woman to get the little Acura was now attempting face, and David hastily shimmied Dash makes sure you do so: the a wide theatrical release in 1991, to nose its way into the vacant his insurance card from his wallet shots linger, and much of the surely has and will serve as an cushion David had let form in and presented it, loose, to the plot is delivered so subtly that introduction to the Gullah culture front of him. He sat back patiently. shellshocked Harvard graduate. to turn away for even a second it portrays in such complex and Movement after such a long period would be to misunderstand the immersive detail that it would be of stagnation had imbued him with Harry was more than stories portrayed therein. And to a shame—both educationally and magnanimity enough to forgive the understanding, and moved David’s misunderstand would be a grave artistically—to get anything less honking incident. meeting to the following week. mistake: for many, Daughters, than the most out of it.

He stared at the Acura’s license plate number, contentedly running through equations in an attempt to reach zero. The cars to his right slid slightly forward, and the plate was illuminated.

30 The Nassau Literary Review Spring 2021 31 It is 1902, on an island near the "For this family, of the younger women, Eula, Despite the Peazant family and coasts of South Carolina and is pregnant. Her unborn child their Gullah culture’s singularity, Georgia—in the midst of what time does not (credited as exactly that) narrates their intergenerational memories Daina Ramey Berry and Kali progress linearly the film, with statements prescient of enslavement are shared with Nicole Gross call the “dawning of but rather beyond her years, and it is the greater history of African the Black woman’s era” in their this child—as well as Nana, the Americans. Moments from the book A Black Women’s History inexorably doubles matriarch of the Peazants—who are film are resonant with the history of the United States. Two women upon itself, so that the most spiritually in tune. Nana’s of Black women as mothers and whose activities—for one, devout connections with ancestral history resistors to slavery, as depicted participation in the church; for the the future affects and the Unborn Child’s visions of her in A Black Women’s History of other, working in the sex trade—fall the past as much and her family’s future demonstrate the United States and Dorothy resolutely within the boundaries of as the past affects the non-linear temporality central to Roberts’ Killing the Black Body. this era, being adults born in the the Peazants’ Gullah culture, which In the chapter entitled “Angela’s first full post-slavery generation the future, and they has developed from its African roots Exodus out of Africa”, Berry and of Black people, return here. They must reckon with all in relative isolation and remains Gross describe the Middle Passage are coming to take the rest of their unique from mainland African- of the transatlantic slave trade family away from their home of Ibo of time to deal with American culture. For this family, and the forms of resistance that Landing. The following two days any of it." time does not progress linearly but Black women undertook both are a reckoning for the Peazant rather inexorably doubles upon aboard the ships and on American family as several of its members, itself, so that the future affects the shores. Though Daughters of the each with their own stories and past as much as the past affects the Dust is set nearly a hundred years circumstances, decide whether to the turn of the century, a reading future, and they must reckon with afterwards, the weight of one such stay in Ibo Landing or to follow “the of Daughters of the Dust may be all of time to deal with any of it. uprising—that of Ibo Landing (also dream of the North”. This premise informed by both earlier chapters seems to narrow down the setting in the story of Black women and of the film quite precisely: all of it by their lives and culture in the takes place on a single, relatively present-day. What allows the small island, and the main string timeline of the story to remain of events fits neatly between limitless is also the sentiment at its Courtesy of Cohen Film Collection when these two women—Viola and heart—that the past lives on to the “Yellow” Mary—first approach the present, and does so specifically island to when their boat leaves it through an “inheritance of memory” again. But the real thematic heart of that takes both metaphorical and Daughters of the Dust is not nearly literal forms. There are symbolic so constrained: because it describes manifestations of the past on a turning point in its characters’ the island: a bottle tree that one lives, it is as much about the past character attempts to destroy and and the future of the family as it is another character encourages her about the 1902 present. family to study—sculpted forms of the family’s enslaved ancestors that Thus, though Viola and Mary rise from the surrounding waters. represent the efforts and trials that But a more literal manifestation Black women experienced around occupies much of the plot: one

32 The Nassau Literary Review Spring 2021 33 known as Igbo Landing)—is felt they had at their disposal—even she describes the rupturing of describes in her article “Partus heavily throughout the film. The resorting to suicide—in order families under slavery and the sequitur ventrum: Law, Race, and story as understood by historians to regain their freedom. Bilal’s possibility that a male child might Reproduction in Colonial Slavery”, today is as follows: a group of Ibo depiction of a rebellion like this not be separated from his mother at any child born to an enslaved people in captivity aboard the slave only demonstrates the viscerality birth and, years later, be forced woman, even a child born after she ship The Wanderer stage a mutiny. of its characters’ connection to mate with her or with his sister. was raped by her white enslaver, They drown their captors, but once to ancestral trauma, but also To avoid this, Nana Peazant says, would also be enslaved. This legal the Wanderer comes ashore, they reminds the viewer, as Berry and the “old souls in each family would practice was used to break up walk into the marshes to drown Gross do, of the agency Black keep mental records of births, Black families and Black kinship themselves as well (Momodu). people maintained throughout deaths, marriages, and sales”, structures in favor of supporting Eula, the pregnant member of their captivity, and the dignity reinforcing what Roberts describes the economic interests of the white the Peazant family, tells it slightly with which they confronted their as the “remarkable success” of enslaver. Though this is no longer differently: in her version, upon dehumanizing conditions. Black women in “maintaining the the material reality of Eula and Eli, landing, the Ibo see all that is to integrity of their family live despite who live as a free Black couple on come—and with that knowledge, Though the events of Ibo Landing slavery’s traumas” (51). the island, they still face the threat they choose not to walk into the are the most distinct historical event of physical violence: Eula fears, water, but on it, in order to return portrayed in the film, Daughters Despite their resilience, however, for example, that if Eli learns who home to Africa. Her narration floats of the Dust is also concerned the women of the Peazant family raped her, he may confront the over shots of her husband, Eli, as with Black women’s relationship are not without internal conflict. man and subsequently be lynched. he too walks upon the water and to reproduction. The chapter One of the women who returns, This legal construct, then, not only cradles the figures, who appear to “Reproduction in Bondage” from Yellow Mary, has been somewhat immediately disrupted the Black be the sculpted forms of the Ibo, Killing the Black Body details the shunned by her family—to them, family, as Roberts and Morgan that rise from beneath it. struggles of Black women during having worked both as a prostitute write, but traumatized generations slavery to gain their reproductive and as a wet nurse, she is a “ruined of Black women and affected the Another member of the family freedom; though Daughters of woman” and a “hussy”. It is revealed very connection of motherhood tells the story differently: the the Dust takes place decades through Mary’s empathizing with that the Peazants see as so central character of Bilal, who claims to afterwards, the foundations of the Eula that both women have been to their Gullah identity. have himself been a captive on the Peazant family’s treatment of sex, raped, likely by white men, and Wanderer, revises Eula’s version reproduction, and motherhood can became pregnant as a result. These Daughters of the Dust is thus of events to be something aligning be seen in the way these concerns experiences of sexual violence not certainly concerned with the more with historians’ views, saying of Black women were handled only traumatize Eula and Mary pain and trauma involved in its “Ain’t nobody can walk on water”. under slavery. Most explicitly, but are compounded by rejection characters’ personal and ancestral Though certainly more somber the film describes the practice of from their families: Yellow Mary histories—but though it takes time than Eula’s tale, Bilal’s story is forced reproduction. Roberts calls herself is seen as less of a Peazant, to discuss the past, it also shows nonetheless resonant with not this aspect of reproductive control and Eli, Eula’s husband, worries its characters breaking their pasts’ only the “truest” story of Ibo as “slave-breeding”, in which that the baby will not truly be his holds on their futures. The main Landing, but the similar defiances enslavers would “[compel] slaves because it is the product of rape. conflict of the film is the decision portrayed in “Angela’s Exodus out they considered ‘prime stock’ to Though Eula and Eli are more that each Peazant must make— of Africa”. The chapter describes mate in the hopes of producing than a generation removed from that is, to stay on the island or to revolts such as the mutiny aboard children especially suited for slavery, this fear is informed by pursue further opportunity in the the ship Little George, when labor or sale” (27). It appears in the heritability of enslavement North—and, by the end of the film, African women, men, and children Daughters of the Dust as part legally established as early as 1662 the family becomes divided. Nana alike would use whatever means of Nana Peazant’s narration; in Virginia. As Jennifer L. Morgan Peazant, Yellow Mary, Eula, Eli, and

34 The Nassau Literary Review Spring 2021 35 one other Peazant choose to stay, And what of the future of the film while the rest of the family departs itself? Despite Daughters of the for the mainland. As a result, the Dust’s Sundance premiere and wide Peazants’ future is not simple, nor theatrical release, it faded somewhat can it be easily reduced: while they from prominence in popular culture may not abandon their past lives until it was re-released into theaters or ancestral knowledge, they also in 2016. Though not the sole impetus do not disregard the possibility for this re-release, its popularity Zayed that they might change. This with a new generation was certainly tension reveals the true strength encouraged by Beyoncé’s film of Daughters, and the gift that it Lemonade, which accompanied gives the cinematic canon to which her sixth studio album earlier that it belongs—that is, the way that year and references Daughters Daughters evaluates each of its (Desta). Lemonade is in large part characters as her own person with autobiographical, but Beyoncé deals her own motive, reasoning, history, with much of the same history as and vision of the future. This Daughters, such as the resistance at depiction of Black women’s agency Ibo Landing, and imitates its visual is so rich and compelling that it language in several scenes. By tying leaves the audience of Daughters this history and imagery together to worried not whether the decision again tell the story of a Black woman to leave or stay was right or wrong and her family, Beyoncé and the in each case, but rather reassured audiences she brought to Daughters that though the trauma of the of the Dust give new life to the film slavery era may persist, so does the and demonstrate once more its core capacity of Black women to resist it message—that the present will always and to create love in spite of it. inherit the strength of the past.

Works Cited

Berry, Daina Ramey and Kali Nicole Gross. A Black Women’s History of the United States. Beacon Press, 2020. Cordelia Lowry

Daughters of the Dust. Directed by Julie Dash, Kino International, 1991.

Desta, Yohana. “How Beyoncé’s Lemonade Helped Bring a Groundbreaking Film Back to Theaters.” Vanity Fair, 22 Aug. 2016, www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/08/daughters-of-the-dust- exclusive. Accessed 19 Mar. 2021.

Momodu, Samuel. “Igbo Landing Mass Suicide (1803).” Blackpast.org, 25 Oct. 2016, www. blackpast.org/african-american-history/events-african-american-history/igbo-landing-mass- suicide-1803/. Accessed 19 Mar. 2021.

Roberts, Dorothy. Killing of the Black Body. 1997. Vintage Books, 2017.

36 The Nassau Literary Review Spring 2021 37 Postcard. Rodrigo Pichardo

Is there a right for you to be here in a barn on a piece of freshly mowed dirt field where your land certificates are used to clean up shit left behind by cows where the tree your father a “bandit” was hung from dirty feet dangled tied to a horse and dragged where they stabbed your wife and your brother for a goat where they titled you dead and you squeezed a drop of blood from the Anglo for every acre of planted Mexicans, they left behind for you to water on your way home. The garbage trucks skip your barrio, they roll by like a spontaneous drive-by or cops on their lunch break, hungry for bullets, it’s easy to talk about violence, to see violence and to bring it up in written words, especially when I dedicate my poetry to the land that I grew up on or to any chavala – this one’s for you – that walks by on the street with a strap to their waist or slangin’ dimes for their mamas, on Avenues of al pines bumping Chicano rappers, and the streets don’t grow silent at night, they stay bright and smell of gunpowder.

Al Mare Cordelia Lowry

38 The Nassau Literary Review Spring 2021 39 Ben Guzovsky

immediate red flags, but allow me A long time ago I went to a talk by to ask a probing question: what Professor Anne-Marie Grisogono Coloring does being a part of the Mughal of Flinders University in Australia. Empire mean? In other words, Grisogono is a complex systems to what degree does the Mughal scientist, which loosely means Outside Empire actually control all of that she is an expert in solving the highlighted regions? And is complex problems. She posed a that control cultural, political, or very interesting question: What the Lines: economic? The control is certainly is the biggest cause of conflict in not the same everywhere. Port the world? Many answers come cities were largely independent to mind, but it seems difficult to The Secrets and the Empire was not able to tax answer definitively. There was the whole of the Indian Peninsula. an extensive UN study done to The area added in orange area 1707 find an answer, and the result Maps Hide also needs some complicating. Its was definitive: borders are the coastal territories shown had heavy number one cause of conflict. European political and economic Can maps, I wondered, help us influences that are not shown. predict conflict then?

We question everything. News. Take a look at this map of the Mughal The map-maker wasn’t wrong to In his landmark book When Data. Suspicious statistics. We argue Empire, which controlled the Indian put things together this way, and Maps Become the World, Rasmus about the world’s biggest problems peninsula for two centuries thanks one does get a general idea of Grønfeldt Winther demonstrates and the littlest details of our own to the invention of gunpowder. the Mughal Empire’s growth, as the privilege and power held by lives. Some of our arguments are the title would suggest. It is not the map creator and the extent clean cut—easily settled by a Google the cartographer’s job to define to which the choices of what to search or a fact checker. Others grow the concept of empire. But this include and leave out can “remake more dangerous as our most-trusted is simplification, a necessary the world”. Maps show us only one sources erode their journalistic whittling down to the most definition of a border, and it is not standards. It’s becoming harder to important details. A more precise the most important one. We need know where to look for answers. map would have been much more to look at social and ethnic borders, confusing. Cartographer Mark borders on the smallest scales There are some things, however, Monmonier addresses issues like and the largest, borders within that it never occurs to us to this in How To Lie With Maps, a communities and borders between question. They’re not quite book that covers everything from religious groups, and ideological polarizing or engaging enough to distortion and scale to satellite and political borders, too. Maps hold our attention. They’re the mapping and commercial interests. divide the world into countries: implicit lies that are too well-hidden However, he doesn’t deal enough to make us think twice. This map is one of the first results with the oversimplification issue. from a Google search for “Mughal To understand that more fully, we’ll They’re ordinary. Empire Map”. It doesn’t raise any need to take a step back.

40 The Nassau Literary Review Spring 2021 41 hues to suggest the flexibility map we analyzed earlier as the of these areas of control, and final ruling on all things Mughal. most importantly, it is not afraid But that is exactly how we look at to leave a region blank: the world maps. We take brief glances coastal area between Somaliland at them and subliminally begin and Puntland. All images need to think we know the world—a context. We would never make dangerously implicit way to think. conclusions from just any random photograph, yet it’s easy to think Everything is simplified and that maps are different because streamlined, engineered to be they are made to look official and easily digestible. Keep wondering— careful. Maps should come with keep questioning what’s beneath captions and context too. the surface of all the things we take for granted. Let’s return to the Mughals. If you want to learn more about the Mughal Empire, you’ll turn to a large number of sources, hear from 1. Header image, courtesy of vividmaps.com 2. Image 2, courtesy of Khan Academy some experts, and certainly consult 3. Image 3, courtesy of mapshop.com your maps. Few people look at that 4. Image 4, courtesy of Ethan Zuckerman But what does this tell us? For so Look at the fine print on this map: long, I looked at modern world maps and thought, wow, the world today has conflict, but nowhere near as much as it used to. Maps change rarely, borders seem fixed, and countries are contained. All world maps should have this footnote: *only shows internationally recognized countries.

Yemen has been divided by a civil war since 2014. Somalia contains two autonomous states. Myanmar has been torn apart by internal conflict that has not abated since 1948. The list goes on. Maps hide these divisions when they should This one, made in the midst of be the objective, unbiased sources Somalia’s civil war, knows its for us to learn more about them. place. It distinguishes between Yes, borders are always in flux, regions controlled by the UIC but here the world has long been (Islamic Courts Union) and passively oversimplified. those allied with it, it uses soft

42 The Nassau Literary Review Spring 2021 43 To Find a Home

Some say no matter how much and the headlights flickering you might try, between the pines. you can never plant an old line And nowhere to lay rest in another poem. to the tap left running, the girl disappearing In much the same way into the cornfield, you would never come across and the squirrel who an English sheep grazing sent the timeless oaks shivering. under a palm tree, a thorny line will never lie still Yet, above all these, slipped under the rug I struggled most of some other stanza with the stars, with last month’s metre a career-ending prospect and yesterday’s refrain. for any poet. Staring up emptily So I could never find a home at those dark constellations, for the children’s footprints I couldn’t help but remember remembered in wet cement, everything I had still to place the bouquets forgotten on car roofs in the world before me; slipping away with the wind, my mother and sister and the muted backup singers, side dancing alone in the kitchen, -stepping on the hospital monitor. a boy stumbling home drunk down a dark country lane, No place for the hoofbeats and the simple fact, rolling into the valley, that sometimes the cowhides hung to to find a home, dry over the fence, you have to build it first.

Henry Wright

44 The Nassau Literary Review Spring 2021 45 Cassandra James The Road

The old man’s feet are tired. He nods. Curious, but not curious Above him, the desert sun burns enough to waste any more time, the tangerine; his nose blisters and girl shrugs her brown shoulders. peels. He has walked for hours— ten, maybe twelve, since sunrise— “Best of luck,” she says, and then and his heels drag in the dirt, she is gone, leaving the old man in leaving long and crooked lines a cloud of yellow dust. behind him. Cars rumble past; dust floats over the highway, over He grimaces at the pain in the the mountains; the old man wipes balls of his feet, at the ache that his eyes with the edge of his jacket. climbs from his ankles to his hips and up into his stiffened neck. He On his left, a blue convertible slows should pause—rest—eat—before he and pulls to the side of the road. continues on. At this exit, he will A young woman leans out, waving make his turn. So he hobbles the and smiling. last few miles, head bowed beneath the heat, licking his cracked lips. “Need any help?” The sand tastes like ashes.

The old man shakes his head. This Exit 33 offers two options: fast is his task; it is set before him, and food (which the old man abhors Cary Moore he must finish it alone. on principle) and a diner. As might be expected, he chooses the latter. My Mother “You sure?” He shuffles down the exit ramp

46 The Nassau Literary Review Spring 2021 47 and across the diner parking lot; it “Are you ready to order?” The old man stares into his coffee “It’s only half.” takes all his strength to pull open cup. He’ll have the All-American the front door. He asks a buck- An aproned woman stands behind Breakfast with extra bacon, please, He nods. He tore out the New toothed girl at the hostess stand the counter, smiling through rose- and a side of hash browns. Testament long ago. for a counter seat, trails behind colored lipstick. She is short, squat, her as she chatters about their with tear-drop eyes and uneven The woman’s lips twitch. “Coming She’s about to reply when the front most-recent specials, and sits for teeth, like a Barbie doll that has right up.” door opens, and a bearded man the first time that day. Then he been dropped and stepped on. steps inside. The old man doesn’t sighs, ribs folding bone over bone, The squeaking pitch of her voice The old man is left alone to decide fail to notice the way the woman’s until all the breath has left his tells him that she is younger than which is worse: the coffee or the fingers grip the counter. body. Tired, he thinks, and orders she looks—too young to smell so music. He sighs. If he were not so a coffee (black, no sugar). strongly of mouthwash and liquor. tired, he would ask the hostess “One sec,” she says, and follows to play something classical. He the man out to the parking lot. It’s early, still, for dinner, and the “Take as long as you’d like,” she prefers Mozart, but can stomach restaurant is empty. Plastic chairs tells him. Tchaikovsky, and will never refuse The old man eats. He has just are stacked on tables, paper a Rachmaninoff concerto. That is finished his coffee when the menus piled on the counter. A He nods, thanks her. She doesn’t move. what his wife must be doing now, woman returns; her wrists have pop ballad crackles from a built- he imagines: she must be settling already begun to bruise. in speaker—the man loathes pop “Did you walk here?” into a chair on the porch, sipping music like he loathes fast food. from a mug of hot green tea, leaning “Should I bring the check?” she asks. There is nothing real in either of He blinks. back into the waves of a sonata. them, nothing good. He rubs his For a moment, the old man closes Yes, he tells her. Then: it was a mistake. dry and wrinkled knuckles; his old “There aren’t any cars in the his eyes. He hears the low whine of feet throb; he reads the menu, or parking lot.” wind over desert rock; he touches She doesn’t have to ask what he’s pretends to, because his eyesight a small, wrinkled hand; he feels referring to. “Cash or credit?” is worse than his neck, though he Ah. music flutter up into his chest and will never admit it. settle under his ribcage like a bird. Cash. She shouldn’t have followed “Hitchhiking? Just passing Then the sulfurous reek of eggs is in the bearded man. through?” She puts her palms to his nose, and his eyes are open, and the counter and leans into them. the waitress is in front of him again, She clears his plate, returns his “Not running from the law.” smiling. Her lipstick is smudged. Bible, and shrugs. “When you love somebody,” is all she says, and A bend in her lips lets him know “You didn’t bring anything else?” then she’s gone into the kitchen, "Above that she’s joking, but the old man returning only to drop the check on doesn’t laugh. He isn’t running She points to his jacket, where a the counter before disappearing him, the from anything. small brown Bible pokes out of the completely. He is grateful that he desert burns pocket. No, he tells her. He doesn’t is not in love. “Running to something, then? Well,” need anything else. tangerine; his she says, “it has to be a woman.” It is only when he has left the “Can I see it?” diner, when he is back on the road, nose blisters He is already married. when the moon hangs high and full Reluctantly, he gives it to her. She in the twilight sky, that the old man and peels." “She waiting for you at home?” pages through it for a moment. prays. He doesn’t ask for anything;

48 The Nassau Literary Review Spring 2021 49 he doesn’t even speak. He wipes Another incident of melancholy. cannot be what I want. He adds this coats his tongue. The old man his eyes with his jacket once more— last part in a whisper, and the wind panics. He repeats to the sleeping the fabric comes away damp—and The evening air is laced with sweeps his voice into the night. girl: pointless! He says to himself: counts the day’s sins: one incident ice. When the sun is gone, the oh, God. It is the sand in his eyes of laziness for stopping at the temperature will fall, and the old The cold creeps into the old man’s which spurs the weeping. It is the diner; two incidents of gluttony for man will be blind in the darkness. joints; his bones seize and crack. cold which causes the trembling the bacon and hash browns; three So he shuffles further from the He tries again to sleep and fails, in his fingers when he touches the incidents of melancholy… road, searching for a place to woken by the whipping wind. A final page of his butchered Bible, sleep. He spots a rocky overhang; storm is coming. He glances at where, in crunched script, the diner He counts until he can’t count he moves toward it. the girl. Nudges her ankle. She is waitress has written: I forgive you. anymore. After all, this is the old silent. Well, if he can’t sleep, he will man’s task. It came to him in a By the time he reaches the cliff, the read. So he pulls the Bible from dream, many years ago: he dreamed sun has died, and a chilled wind his pocket, holds it toward the of an asphalt road which led to snaps at his skin with invisible moonlight—and blinks. Something nowhere, and he stopped a woman teeth. He pulls the jacket close is wrong. He closes the Bible, who was walking on it. What is this around his chest; he shudders; his opens it again. It can’t be. He’s road? he asked her. The only road, lungs heave and hitch. He fumbles blind—there is sand in his eyes— she said to him. But as she spoke, in the encroaching blackness he’s imagining things. Slamming "What is this the highway divided into three, and to settle himself on the ground, the book shut, he shoves it back in the old man panicked, and began fingers dragging across rocks and his jacket. One incident of rage. road? he asked to cry. How would he know which dirt and—something warm. The old her. The only one was the right road? The woman man recoils. Who does she think she is? he gripped his hand, and when he says to the sleeping girl, though road, she said turned to look at her, she was no It’s a child. A girl. Bird-boned he is only talking to himself. The longer a woman, but a man with no and half alive, curled on her hip, pride, the arrogance! As if she is to him." face. You will know, the man told shivering, too tired to move when any better than him, than anyone. him. Then the old man woke with the old man nudges her. He frowns. Doesn’t she know it is pointless? tears dried on his cheeks, and he He has met too many like her on And why would she do such a left his too-large house with nothing the road: drop-outs and runaways, thing in the first place? She has but a wallet and a Bible, walking, drifting between addictions. no justifiable reason; there is no counting, occasionally working or Nothing can be done for her. So he reason involved, at all. He never begging, never losing sight of the sits on the ground and leans back asked her for it, and she shouldn’t road. He didn’t tell his wife and against the cliff, groaning. He closes have given it to him, but now there children where he was going; he only his eyes. Opens them. Looks at the is a debt, a debt he can never prayed that they would understand. girl. She sleeps. If he talks to her, repay. Two more incidents of rage— Sometimes, he wonders if they were she won’t hear, and the thought is one of despair. The storm rages, and the road is happy to be rid of him—if they comforting, so he speaks. gone. But though he tries, and smiled, if they laughed, thanking All around him, the wind flies though he has committed many God for the vanishing of Papi and I have a daughter like you, he tells like horses, howling, mourning, sins, the old man can’t think of any his drunken rages. Other times, her. I saw her again today—she is swirling into the sky and dousing more things to count. His tired feet when he is cornered by the rabid a diner waitress, now—but she did the stars. The road! The road! He feel suddenly light; for the first dogs of his thoughts, he wonders if not know me. Then I left her again. has lost sight of it, he can’t see, all time in many years, he remembers they think of him at all. I did not want to leave her. But I is dark. The sand scalds his eyes, his own name.

50 The Nassau Literary Review Spring 2021 51 “Saúl,” he says. “That is my name.” to him—there is a light—he reaches out, out, out with trembling fingers. This night! He is filled with music— Katie Rohrbaugh the wind, the earth—it pours out The cold seizes at his throat. of his chest, out of his fingertips— The wind dies, and the stars there is too much of it, it must be appear again. shared. He looks down; he sees the girl; she is, in an instant, the most At dawn, a pair of vultures circles beautiful thing in the world to him. the old man’s body. He lies beside The Gaze of History Laughing, he strips off his jacket an empty jacket; there is no girl, and lays it over her bony shoulders. now, if there ever was one. The smile on his face is a strange through William Logan's “I know, I know, I know!” the old one for a corpse. While the birds man cries. devour him, the sun rises, and the old man’s daughter is kissing her "Fall of Byzantium" He huddles on his side; he feels husband goodbye, leaving for her no cold. Everything has occurred shift at the diner.

William Logan’s Night Battle is grouping, aptly titled “The Fall a collection of contemporary of Byzantium”. Twelve poems poetry, published in 1999—yet it compose this group, each self- undoubtedly finds weight through contained and oriented around a careful selection of classical a specific location of historical historical references and imagery. significance to the city once Even in one of his starkly modern known as Byzantium (renamed poems, “Florida in January”, Constantinople in 330 CE and now Logan cannot help but include a known as Istanbul). comparison of restless strangers visiting the state to the Roman The relevance of Byzantium poet Ovid roaming the Black Sea. to classical studies cannot be Throughout the poetry collection’s understated. Byzantium, a first four sections, subtle references reference to both the city itself and to historical moments and figures to the Byzantine Empire, adapted serve as foils to the contemporary many Greco-Roman traditions and world Logan observes around characteristics, cementing it as him. However, history and Logan’s somewhat of a successor empire perception of its passage become to Rome. The city acted as a all-encompassing themes in the cultural center for the empire until poetry collection’s fifth and final its capture in 1453 CE by Sultan

52 The Nassau Literary Review Spring 2021 53 Mehmed II and the Ottoman Turks. and walls within Byzantium. This Logan further breathes life into While the exact date of the empire’s perspective goes both ways: we "THIS historical structures through an decline is contested by historians, see history through his eyes, just PERSPECTIVE emphasis on physical changes over the capture of the city is widely as his reflections reveal a man time. For instance, in the poem seen as the end of Byzantium. enamored by the cruel past. It is GOES BOTH “Haghia Sophia”, Logan describes then unsurprising that there are the church-turned-mosque, the Logan himself seems to be a bit of few moments of plain description WAYS: WE center of Byzantine life and culture, a contemporary Romanticist—he or explication within these poems. through a variety of personifying is a great admirer of the classics Instead, the places Logan writes SEE HISTORY language, with lines like: “even and the emotions they arouse, his poems around are conduits for the cold stone had ambitions for championing Romantic figures like his own perspective. For instance, THROUGH itself” and the scintillating “cool Milton and even Captain Ahab while looking out the window from HIS EYES, mosaics flayed from the walls from Moby Dick. As a testament within the Pera Palas hotel, Logan like skin.” Logan reinforces the to his love for Romanticism, sighs, “each view not a lie, but the JUST AS HIS church, marked by “stray chisel Logan dedicates one section, fossil of a lie,” speaking directly to marks, cold plots of betrayal, [and] called “Milton’s Tongue”, of Night his profound sense of loss at being REFLECTIONS fires pitched against the living Battle to contemporary poems on unable to experience the past as it wall,” as a symbol for constantly Miltonian locations and themes. was. Because this past isn’t Logan’s REVEAL A MAN changing history. Once again, But Captain Ahab and Moby Dick reality, he can only construct his physicality becomes entwined with also play a central role in “The own imaginings—or as he phrases ENAMORED notions of history. Changes in the Fall of Byzantium”. Logan begins it, his “lies”—of the city as it was BY THE CRUEL composition of these structures the section with an epigraph from experienced in 1453 CE. reflect a wider historical moment, Moby Dick: PAST." such as a changing of regime, as Along with offering his own in “Great Palace”, or the rising of a The firm tower, that is Ahab; perspective on Byzantium, Logan new religion with “Haghia Sophia”. the volcano, that is Ahab; the uses the geographical concreteness courageous, the undaunted, of his poems to immerse the reader Logan offsets revenant depictions and victorious fowl, that, too, in locations distant both physically of ancient structures with is Ahab; all are Ahab; and this and temporally. The poems’ sense of declaratory sentiments on the round gold is but the image of place makes it seem as if the reader nature of history. His melancholic the rounder globe, which, like is travelling alongside Logan as a lens produces the image of an a magician's glass, to each and witness to his somber observations occupy in Byzantium. Logan places unflinching past where “what every man in turn but mirrors on the nature of history. The the reader in the midst of the survives is not love but order / back his own mysterious self. arrangement of poems almost feels poem’s action through the inclusion the remnants of a past refused like a travel itinerary of sorts, as of a second-person subject: “In the by the past” (“Basilica Cistern”). Logan points to the subjectivity the first poem begins with a visit Spice Bazar / men swarmed around Historical and religious figures of history and to how his own to the historical “grand-no-more” us” (“Spice Bazaar”) and “You also do not escape Logan’s gaze. perceptions of the physical world hotel Pera Palas—a fitting first thought you heard the jazzy clamor Much like Percy Byssche Shelley’s reflect “his own mysterious self”— stop for weary travelers. Besides of a horn” (“Galata Tower”). In the infamous “Ozymandias”, Logan’s rather than offering objective, the spatiality of the poems, Logan midst of action, it is easy to see conception of time leaves “the physical descriptions, Logan uses internal elements to create an how Logan gets swept away by the last kings of Sidon” (“Alexander assigns metaphors and figurative intimate connection between the history of the places he visits, and Sarcophagus”) locked in a stone language to the churches, hotels, reader and the imagined space they how he pulls the reader in with him. tomb to be eaten away until they

54 The Nassau Literary Review Spring 2021 55 are nothing. Using the image of various historical sites he has sand as time, Logan writes “the visited. Yet, there is a tangible Christian God took his powers spiritual aspect to these pieces, Site New from the sand / and left His as if one should only read them Drew Pugliese powers to sand again” (“Haghia in whispers. As Logan would Sophia”) to explain the religious likely attest to, time will continue transformations undergone by moving, but “Fall of Byzantium” Haghia Sophia as the Ottomans will surely remind its audience of gained control of it. Time and the history it leaves behind. history, its byproduct, leave nothing untouched in their * * * ceaseless progression ahead (1). (1) Other lines on this subject Though Byzantium is no longer, that caught my attention: “Past Logan manages to muster much has no need for forgiveness and of its allure and power with a the future no need to pardon” few lines of poetry. Enchanting (“Alexander Sarcophagus”); “We lines fixated on changing physical came to see the past, but the past appearances piece together was blind” (“Basilica Cistern”); “No a material account of Logan’s one survives the pastness of the journey through the city and the past” ("Aqueduct of Valens")

Christian mosaic in Hagia Sophia, courtesy of iStock

56 The Nassau Literary Review Spring 2021 57 Henry Wright WHAT WE'RE LOVING: WINTER BREAK 2020 EDITION though I’ve known people capable of focusing on two things at once, perhaps even been introduced to a few Cross-Eyed who could handle three on a good day, Edge of Midnight and maybe brushed shoulders with one who could take four for a stroll; I could never bring so much with me. (Midnight Sky Remix)

whether for lack of talent or trying, I’ve only ever been able to hold one thing at a time; Megan Pan the smudged halo of the accelerometer, or the soft bristle of wind breaking over the hood, previous discography. Merging the moon-sketched silhouette of 80’s-era influences such as disco firs growing above the road, and glam rock with modern-day or the broken white lines pop sensibility, Plastic Hearts diving beneath the car. features Cyrus’s strong, versatile vocals on tracks ranging from I hesitate to blame my father uptempo punk rock belters to for this gift, soulful power pop ballads. The as I watch his eyes match album’s crowning jewel, however, the dusty gaze of the headlights has to be the digital edition from the rear-view mirror, exclusive track “Edge of Midnight and wait for him to glance back, (Midnight Sky Remix),” a mashup once more, Courtesy of RCA Records of the album’s lead single “Midnight to see my sister Sky” and legendary Fleetwood Mac asleep against the window, frontwoman Stevie Nicks’s 1982 and I, tucked into On November 27, 2020, American release “Edge of Seventeen.” the far side of the car, singer Miley Cyrus released her watching the darkness swirl seventh studio album entitled As the result of several traumatic in the heavy summer air, Plastic Hearts, marking both the experiences, including the loss of trying to make out the clouds tail end of a universally tumultuous her house to the California wildfires sailing half-mast year as well as a significant and a public divorce from longtime through the night. departure from the sound of her partner Liam Hemsworth, Cyrus

58 The Nassau Literary Review Spring 2021 59 had written the original “Midnight "Given the Emma Mohrmann Sky” as a means of reclaiming her independence, encapsulating her comparable personal growth, and celebrating contexts of the her own self-expression. Many two songs— of the lyrics make reference to her lost love (“I don’t need to be both composed loved by you”) while also alluding in the face of to her post-split romances, which were the subject of heavy scrutiny devastation—it is by the media (“See my lips on her only fitting that mouth, everybody’s talkin’ now”). their mashup In a similar manner, Nicks’s “Edge of Seventeen” was also written works so well as a in the wake of tragedy, following triumphant anthem the death of her uncle and the murder of John Lennon in the of resilience." same week of December 1980. Its lyrics feature the recurring motif of a white-winged dove, meant to symbolize the spirit leaving the body on death, whose coos Cyrus confesses that “it’s been a are captured in the descanted long time since I felt this good on refrain: “ooh, baby, ooh.” Given the my own.” As the subdued guitar comparable contexts of the two accompaniment blooms into the songs—both composed in the face resonant chorus, Cyrus’s raspy of devastation—it is only fitting belt defiantly declares that “I that their mashup works so well as was born to run, I don’t belong a triumphant anthem of resilience. to anyone” before pairing with Nicks’s crooning vocals on the Though standalone hits in their iconic lines that follow: “Just like own right, the marriage of the raw the white winged dove / Sings a sugar vulnerability of “Midnight Sky” with song, sounds like she’s singing…” the mystical sensuality of “Edge Buoyed by the harmonization of Seventeen” creates a coupling of its two powerhouse vocalists, on that elevates the best qualities of the song continues building up in the originals. Kicking off with the passionate intensity up until the latter’s distinctive, chugging 16th- final climactic end, as it rides out my note guitar riff, the remix launches the high of a euphoric freedom, as into its opening verse, in which clear as the air of the midnight sky. tongue

60 The Nassau Literary Review Spring 2021 61 Jimin Kang Supervision Dutch Oven

Today I am thinking of a Dutch oven. I am picturing its curves of gravelly black,

remembering the way my finger tingles when it runs across How long ago was it, now? I swam in a pool thick Its smooth, heavy surface. How I’d love to master with dead leaves and bumblebee carcasses. My skin was scarred with goosebumps, and An object like that: Forged in fire my brother, just a shape beneath And immune to heat, to the hot weariness of time. the dark water, kept grabbing my legs—but I didn’t turn to hit him, my neck prickling Today I am thinking of the dough it holds, sticky and wet beneath my grandmother’s gaze, though the glare like rained-upon clay. Then what emerges with flame: from the sun on the great triangular window rendered her face a yellow streak, a non-face, Craggy hills of freshly baked bread, steam rising ghostly in the rays. from where flour and water once met. A miracle…

And I am thinking of your hands as they open and close the recipe book, like two palms meeting in prayer. Lara Katz One cup of flour, a teaspoon of grace… I am picturing the way your back bends

As you open the oven, how you receive the hot air. How you cut the bread and place a slice on each of our plates.

How later you leave the cast iron to burn on a glowing stove; The heat—as you told me once, and I’m recalling today—

will clean it, prepare it for the next loaf. An endless burning that gives and gives.

62 The Nassau Literary Review Spring 2021 63 Charley Moon Jr. Chases a Star

Charley Moon Jr. Hides Now I know better. from the Sunshine Because, I was born very white. I don’t My Mother, whose name is Molly mean white like a normal white Boy, Moon, once told me: “Charley who colors himself in with the Crayola Moon, you are absolutely no crayon named “apricot” or “peach” or different from anybody else.” maybe even “tan.” I mean white like the Crayola crayon named “white.” Looking back, this should’ve been a sure-as-the-sky-is-blue sign White like the normal white Boy, that I am, in fact, different from dipped in an extra layer of bleach. everybody else. But back then, I believed in Molly blindly, my pretty White like the dandelion, towards blonde guardian angel. I was only the end of its life-cycle. five-and-a-half, so you’ll have to forgive my stupidity. White like the blank page.

Briony Zhao desktop < view < blindfold a short folktale

64 The Nassau Literary Review Spring 2021 65 The Doctors call this kind of white of handsome boyfriends and was born, he started running down Rafaello. But both Molly and me Albino. And just for the record, yes, Marlboro cigarettes and rainbow to the South, where the Sunshine adore the last name “Moon.” Molly’s all of me is white—my skin all over, lipsticks in her patent leather turns white people brown. maiden name was something long my hair all over (including my brand- purse. Every single day, Molly According to local legend, he’s still and Eastern European and hard to new pubic hair). My one and only paints herself a new and different- running to this day. Probably he’s pronounce. But Molly Moon sounds droplet of color is my eyes. They colored face. This advertises that reached Florida by now. like the name of a chanteuse or a are a shade called “fuschia,” which Molly is a professional beautician B-movie star. is a mix of red and violet. You’ve at Betsy’s, the one and only beauty probably never seen anything salon in East Eden, Illinois. For your He also left $5,000 in a spit-sealed like them. Molly claims they look information, Betsy died twelve white envelope. We’re saving that pretty, “like ruby gems,” but I do not years ago, but they kept her name "So she for a rainy day. believe in her so blindly anymore. because it has a nice ring to it. All I know for certain is, whenever preserved all Charley Moon Jr. in the I go outside, the Sunshine glares There was a time, though, when her dreams Depths of Night down like it hates me and pains my Molly had dreams bigger than a dead fuschia eyes terribly. The Doctors lady’s beauty salon. Dreams so big, in carefully In my nightmares, Charles Moon call this kind of pain Photophobia. they threatened to crush the town of Sr. is running back up to the North, East Eden, the county of Caskaskia, labeled jam where the Sunshine is weaker and It is halfway the Sunshine’s fault the state of Illinois, and possibly jars for the white people stay pink-ish. Once that I hide myself away. And halfway the whole Midwest. She tried to he arrives in East Eden, he takes because the last time I emerged, I hitchhike out to Hollywood, where winter." back the house, and he takes back made an entire elementary school little Girls with pretty faces and big the names, and he takes back the full of small children cry. Millions dreams turn to solid gold. Only on $5,000. He even takes back Molly. and millions of teardrops dripped the way, she accidentally fell in true down from their blue or green or love and got stuck there. So, she Then, Charles Moon Sr. sells me brown or black-colored eyes, and preserved all her dreams in carefully to the Ringling Brothers’ Circus my fuschia-colored eyes, too. It labeled jam jars for the winter. And To his credit, Charles Moon Sr. did and its candy-red striped tent. was very traumatic. We could’ve instead of getting famous, she got leave a few important things behind: Those Ringling Brothers are always flooded the whole world. married and got pregnant. looking for Albino children to lock He left his house. Admittedly, it up in their human-sized cage. They Eight years flew by like a flock of As Molly grew ripe-apple round, isn’t the nicest house, not even on charge people fifty cents to come white-feathered geese. I wonder if the white-coated Doctors promised a block full of not-so-nice houses. take a good long look at me. And I am ready for the outside world. that I would be perfect. They forgot The house is white, and sheds paint they shout into ugly megaphones: I wonder if the outside world is that ultrasounds are in black-and- chips like a molting dove. The lawn ready for me. white like old movies. So, it was is grey, and no flowers will ever “Come one, come all! Step up and shocking for everyone when my grow. But none of that matters BEHOLD the VAMPIRE BOY! The The Moon Family Rises lilly-white head was plucked from because the house is home. spirit is dead, but the body lives over East Eden, Illinois Molly’s rose-pink vagina. on! In the Sunshine, he MELTS like He left his names. Personally, I hate a VANILLA ICE CREAM CONE!” From watching plenty of television, Especially my Father, Charles the first name “Charles.” If I ever I know that Mothers are supposed Moon Sr., who I haven’t met yet. work up the courage, I’d like to trade Then I melt down to a puddle of to be dowdy. But never Molly! According to Molly, he is a man of it in for something more foreign sticky nothingness, in front of the She keeps an endless supply very little consequence. The day I and romantic, like Jean-Claude or cheering crowd.

66 The Nassau Literary Review Spring 2021 67 Luckily that’s just a nightmare, and paper was white. My most favorite Overall, I think that I am learning enough to break all my curses. not real life. visitors are the Girls. The three of a lot in homeschool. Except I still Nonetheless, every single day, them are multicolored—the one don’t know how to do long division. Molly tries her hardest to disguise Charley Moon Jr. Goes on the left has light brown, pink- I’ll just have to hope that it will not me as a normal person. to Homeschool ish skin; the one in the middle be relevant to my adult life. has medium brown, orange-ish She smears creams and powders I spend most of my time completely skin; and the one on the right has Charley Moon Jr. Shines and glosses over my white skin. alone, while Molly seduces the deep brown, blue-ish skin. They Down on Men She buys movie-star sunglasses men and beautifies the women come every Tuesday, to stand in at the Dollar General to protect of East Eden. Apparently, this is the front lawn and wave “Hello.” Also, I recently discovered my fuschia eyes. She even dyes called homeschool. One day soon, I’d like to reach my something worrisome: that I my white hair to match her color white hand out through the lacey- might possibly be a Queer. It’s of the month. In the past I’ve been At homeschool, sometimes I watch curtained window and wave back. very confusing. All of the people a brunette and a redhead, but films from Hollywood’s Golden I love and admire (such as Molly currently I am a blonde. Molly says Age. The best ones are from the Sometimes I take a good, hard look and the three Girls outside my this means I’ll have more fun. 1950s, and full of musical numbers at myself in Molly’s vanity. Little window and especially Mitzi and happy endings. For example lightbulbs circle my reflection, Gaynor) are Girls. But all of the The whole time, Molly gossips like winking like fireflies. And I think a tabloid magazine. Today’s gossip Oklahoma! and Guys and Dolls people I want to kiss on the lips about how handsome I might look, is as follows: and especially There’s No Business are Boys. When I confided this to if only I had the right colors. Like Show Business. I am in love Molly, she laughed like a lark, and with Mitzi Gaynor, who is precisely said, “Honey, me too!” Donna Mayfield, the mayor’s wife, the size, shape, and color of a Sometimes I read erotic novels took too many little white pills and porcelain doll. I know all of her and librettos (that’s a fancy French If I actually grow up to be a walked down Main Street in her songs and dances by heart. I think name for the script of a musical) Queer, I will have a grand total birthday suit. that if she met me, she would want and the King James Bible and of FOUR terrible diseases in the to be my friend. fashion magazines. Those are the eyes of the Doctors: Walter King, who lords over fields only kinds of literature that Molly and fields of genetically modified Sometimes I sit by my lacey- owns. I don’t enjoy the Bible, 1.) Albinism 2.) Photophobia corn, swears on God, the Devil, curtained bedroom window, and because it’s neither creative nor 3.) Crippling Social Anxiety 4.) and everyone in-between that he watch the outside world change well-written. I enjoy the erotica Homosexuality saw a U.F.O. The aliens must not color. Day by day, the skies novels (which Molly hides by the like the look of us, because nobody change. Month by month, the dozen under her queen-sized bed) On the bright side, Homosexuality got abducted. trees change. And year by year, the possibly a little too much. is probably easier to disguise people change. than Albinism. Abigail Boone (née Atkins), last year’s Prom Queen, had her baby Sometimes the people my same Charley Moon Jr. Applies only seven months after the bolt- age (meaning very old children or "I am in love with his Stage Makeup action shotgun wedding. Good very new adults) come to visit me. thing the Atkins family is not much My least favorite visitors are the Mitzi Gaynor, who Molly must be unhappy with for math. Boys, who bang on the front door is precisely the size, how she made me the first time. and call me a “Freak” and one time, She is always trying to make me Randy Fletcher, the town’s wrapped the entire house in toilet shape, and color of over. We both know full well that criminal, is back in jail again, this paper. Needless to say, the toilet a porcelain doll." even beauty salon magic is not time probably for good.

68 The Nassau Literary Review Spring 2021 69 "A white Moon Star of such films as South Pacific, Mitzi says, “I escaped from the old and older than hills (except Illinois Les Girls, and especially There’s folk’s home.” I say, “I escaped from is flat). It’s sad that she’s forgotten and a bright No Business Like Show Business. my home, too.” she’s a Star. Admittedly, she looks slightly more Star shining wrinkled in real life than in the Mitzi says, “I like your eyes. They Just to be nice, I say, “That’s okay. I movies. But it’s not 1954 anymore; look pretty, like ruby gems.” I say, am Charley Moon.” out in the you can’t blame her for growing up “Thank you. I like your performance big, empty, and growing old. Her costume for of ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band.’” We wait all through the night for tonight’s show is a pearl necklace the train that isn’t coming. A white American sky." and a hospital gown and a fox fur Mitzi says, “I am not Mitzi Gaynor, Moon and a bright Star shining out stole. She stands underneath the you know.” It’s sad that she’s senile in the big, empty, American sky. yellow glow of a single streetlight. Or maybe it’s a spotlight.

Obviously, I have no choice. I climb out the window and shimmy down Soon enough, it’s time to try and the drainpipe and run off into the emerge from my chrysalis. For an star-spangled night. It’s so late, hour or two or three, we stand by there is no Sunshine to hate me. the hopeful screen door. We look Just Moonshine to love me. I taste out over the grey-green earth and outside air on my tongue, cool the indigo sky. Molly whispers soft and sweet. encouragements to me. But I just stand silent and lifeless, like the I follow her through the spiderweb alabaster statue I am. streets, all the way to the old train station. Mitzi Gaynor is catching a Charlie Moon Jr. Catches midnight train, possibly to Alabama a Star or Hollywood. Apparently, she doesn’t know that passenger trains I wash off my stage makeup and don’t stop in East Eden anymore. take off my costume. My soft white body gets tangled up in my soft Up close, teardrops glimmer in white sheets. I look up at the full her dark-colored eyes. After all Moon, who gave her name to my these years, she still looks like a Father. Then, my Father gave his porcelain doll. name to me. I don’t imagine I’ll give my name to any new Moons. It’s a Mitzi says, “Hello, strange Boy.” I lonely way to be. say, “Hello, Mitzi Gaynor.”

And that’s when I spot her, through Mitzi says, “The Doctors say I’m the lacey curtains: senile, but I don’t believe it.” I say, “The Doctors say I’m Albino, and I Mitzi Gaynor, in the flesh. believe it.”

70 The Nassau Literary Review Spring 2021 71 Budding Night Waterproof

Cassandra James

When I turned on WPLG Local and that’s where I was walking, 10 at 6 a.m. like always, the Morning Star Financial Planning, weatherman said it wasn’t going to when it poured, out of nowhere, rain today, and I trusted him, with a bucket dumped from skyscraper his stern furrowed brow and his height, turning my shoes to fish crisp yellow button-down, Daniel, tanks, and I had to hold my files Antonio, whatever his beautiful above my head, which soaked name was, so I wore my real-cow them, so I can’t tell now whether leather pumps and didn’t pack my my client is a billionaire or broke, new umbrella, I left for my 8 o’clock I don’t know whether to bring shift at Morning Star Financial them an Italian seltzer or a free Planning where I convince people mint, and my anxiety is multiplied to go into debt for a living, where by the state of my hair, which people sometimes catch the looks like a coiled rat, my mother irony of my last name, Enterrado, is always telling me to loosen up, though most of the time they let it go—breathe in, breathe out— don’t, where I trim their lives down but if I let this hair clump go it to numbers on a spreadsheet, just might scamper into a storm

Julian Gottfried

72 The Nassau Literary Review Spring 2021 73 new, to go out on a date, to go ringing heaven off the hook and towels between my toes and then "I could've out with someone like Miguel, I demanding instant grand-babies, my father will call me for the first practiced could’ve felt pretty, or skinny, or she set me up with her friend’s son time in ten years, and he’ll croak at the very least not fat, I could’ve Miguel because I “need to act my hi honey, hi sweetheart, and I’ll letting words flipped my hair out of my eyes age,” and I don’t know how to do ask who is this because I won’t and winked one gorgeous eye, I that, I don’t know know how to be recognize the truth of his voice leave my could’ve practiced letting words twenty-two or carefree like a girl in and he’ll say Jeff, honey, it’s Jeff leave my mouth instead of dying a Corona beer ad, how can anyone and I’ll say don’t call me honey, mouth instead like crippled birds on my tongue be carefree when life comes at don’t call me at all, and he’ll say I’m but now I can’t go anywhere, it’s such a price but when you say no not calling for me, and I’ll listen for of dying like a facade, those weathermen, with chance of rain, no chance of flood, thirty-two seconds exactly before crippled birds their rented suits and Doppler no chance of water turned freight hanging up, then I’ll drop my files radar, the loving way they weave train in the dark, well, then, I’ll to the bathroom floor and stumble on my tongue their hands around the waists of plan my beach trips and take my to the bus stop shoeless, I’ll tie a Maria and Sandy and Katrina, sick days, book ridiculous dates mask over my mouth and pant all but now I can't their meteorologist bobble- with ridiculous men and I won’t the way to the ER, and the woman heads crowned in fancy labels, be ready, I won’t be ready for the behind the desk will say I’m sorry, go anywhere" precipitation and cumulonimbus, one percent in a hundred, the you can’t see her—I can’t see my long-letter parades for a cats knife-blade margin of error where own mother—you’ll have to wait and dogs storm and I don’t think everything flips upside down and like all the others, look, they have it’s much to ask, am I right, just wrong. I’ll be in the bathroom of her on a ventilator but it’s close, morning news that you can count Morning Star Financial Planning— too close, a fifty-fifty shot, and on, at least that’s what I told I’ll be smoothing my frenzied how’s that for a weather report? my father in a letter when I was hair—I’ll be heating my shirt under seven years old and desperate, a hand dryer—I’ll be wringing my You should’ve told me, Daniel/ drain on tiny-rodent feet and isn’t long before I knew for sure that skirt over a sink—I’ll be thinking Antonio. You should’ve told this their job, all those human he was never coming back, I said, about Miguel—I’ll be pouting me about the rain. If you’d told weather vanes, aren’t they built Dad, here’s a house (I sketched my lips and grimacing—and my me, and if I’d known, I would’ve with special noses, special nodes it out and everything), Mama’s cellphone will be drowned, so brought my new umbrella. I in their fingertips for forecasting, the roof, you’re the foundation, I I won’t get the call from Miami would’ve worn a raincoat. I predicting, reducing lightning to knew I’d never be an artist when General Hospital, it’ll go straight wouldn’t have curled my hair. I percentages, nimbostratus clouds he didn’t write me back and what to voicemail while I drag paper would’ve made myself waterproof. to pixels, don’t they read the I’m saying is Biblical, let your yes skies like books and pronounce be yes, your no be no, but this their golden gospel, sunny with a weatherman just looked at me chance at 3 p.m., you see, today I through my living room TV screen would’ve gone on a lunch date with and said no chance, no rain on the Miguel who is an aspiring actor, I horizon, as if Daniel/Antonio has say aspiring because that’s how he an emergency line to God, I mean, says it, with a sideways grin that Mama has one too, it comes makes his canines look sharp, he pre-packaged with motherhood, reminds me of Clark Gable only apparently, batteries not included, shorter and it would be something she only uses it on me, she’s

74 The Nassau Literary Review Spring 2021 75 WHAT WE'RE Dog's First Snow LOVING: Julia M. Walton WINTER BREAK 2020 EDITION

The video I have captured is too long, I must edit, cut it down to fifteen seconds

I only want to see the leaping part

snowflakes dusted on white fur Batya Stein

I want to develop this skill, wipe away Ted Lasso all that’s not happiness Courtesy of IMDB If frame it perfectly, only this:

a pearl-toothed grin in circles pushing up As someone who feels at best the setup to a joke (and, in fact, tiny snowdrifts neutral towards most forms of originated as a sketch from an organized sports, I found myself NBC commercial) is turned into surprisingly invested in Ted Lasso, an exploration of forgiveness and a comedy about an American friendship that is given genuine football coach hired to turn emotional heft by its well-rounded around a failing British football characters. Ted, the titular coach, (soccer) team. What sounds like is unfailingly optimistic in his

76 The Nassau Literary Review Spring 2021 77 attempts to build up the team’s loss in stride. Yes, it is sad, he tells trust in themselves and each his dejected players afterwards in other. His optimism is saved the locker room. But at least, and from becoming outright naivete, most importantly, none of them however, through the insights are sad alone. self-entanglement we’re given into his own struggles with his slowly declining marriage. Cheesy? Maybe. But honestly, as I He’s not a cartoon character, sit typing this up from my single in cheerful to the point of delusion, quarantine, being able to sit with but someone who chooses a bad situation and know that I’m deliberately and repeatedly to surrounded by friends is something view the world with curiosity and I’d give a lot to do right now. compassion instead of judgement.

The show’s emphasis on honesty means that interpersonal problems are dealt with head-on, precluding the kind of drawn- out drama hinging on a lack of basic communication that often frustrates me in sitcoms. The female characters, too, are given fully formed ambitions and friendships, and the dialogue takes an unexpected delight in wordplay: “What if I joined forces with a swashbuckling cat to play tiny guitars for women of the night as we read Alex Haley's most seminal work?” “You'd be in cahoots with Puss in Boots playing lutes for prostitutes reading ‘Roots’.”

By the season’s final match, even I, who has been known to root for the opposing team if it means a "But at least, game might end more quickly, felt as caught up as the screaming fans and most in the (fictional) stands. Spoiler importantly, alert: the team doesn't win, in the end. They face a demotion from none of them Sandra Yang their premier league as a result. Not even Ted can simply take this are sad alone."

78 The Nassau Literary Review Spring 2021 79 CONTRI BUTORS

ADITI DESAI ’24 is a rising sophomore from New Creative Writing. She loves Latin, curling (the Latin American Studies and Creative Writing working to assemble an encyclopedic knowledge of Jersey studying English with certificates in Cognitive sport), and not following recipes. certificates. He loves playing zombie video games every teen movie and rom-com ever. Science and Global Health Policy. She likes using and hanging out with his cat, Vito. Sometimes he statistics to predict just how not-round her bagels CORDELIA LOWRY ’23 is a rising junior from binge-watches Youtube videos. GRADY TREXLER ’24 is a freshman from outside will be, spending (multiple) nights down the shore, Boulder, Colorado studying sociology and Persian of Richmond, Virginia, studying linguistics, and pretending to know how to play chess. language. She has captured photographs of JEREMY PULMANO ’21 is a senior from New philosophy, or something else. He is currently landscapes (both near and far) and portraits of Jersey studying computer science with a certificate using a bamboo toothbrush. JULIAN GOTTFRIED ’24 is a freshman from loved ones since she was young. In her free time, she in creative writing. Now that he's finished his two London, Chicago, or Philadelphia, depending on enjoys hiking, cooking, and listening to podcasts. theses, he's not sure what to do with himself. JULIA M. WALTON ’21 is an English concentrator the time of day. He's a birdwatcher, and so he's Maybe sleep twice. with certificates in Creative Writing, Humanistic studying ecology. He also takes photos. EMMA MCMAHON ’21 is a senior from the Studies, and East Asian Studies. Her creative Chicago suburbs studying Geosciences. When DREW PUGLIESE ’23 is a sophomore from work has previously appeared in Arch & Arrow, BEN GUZOVSKY ’23 is a rising junior and History she’s not drawing, you can find her by the ocean, Northern New Jersey studying art history and COUNTERCLOCK, The Nassau Literary Review, major. This summer, he'll be translating Russian hiking with her dog Huckleberry, or devouring vis. Caesar salad and pizza are his passions. You and The Best Teen Writing of 2016. She currently writer Isaac Babel's short stories into English. Their copious amounts of donuts. can probably find him hanging around Brooklyn serves as Editor-in-Chief Emerita for The Nassau protagonist's name is Ben, too, but protagonist Ben making/ordering/eating caesar salad and/or pizza. Literary Review and will miss Nass Lit very much is also a mobster so hopefully the similarities end EMMA MOHRMANN ’24 is an artist from St. Louis, after she graduates. there. MO. She has enjoyed creating art that focuses on KATIE ROHRBAUGH ’24 is a sophomore from projections and self perception, along with art Orlando, Florida interested in studying history HENRY WRIGHT ’23 is currently on a gap year CASSANDRA JAMES ’23 is a sophomore studying that explores and questions mental states, time, and environmental science. She loves ancient trying to “find himself” for the third time. He English with certificates in Creative Writing, change, and growth. One of her favorite phrases architecture, listening to the Strokes, mumbling, is studying Economics, Cognitive Science and Theater, and Music Theater. Her lesser-known for art and life is “trust the process” and she tries to and letting her mind wander. Creative Writing. His accent can usually be found talents include eating avocados, collecting Disney find beauty in everyday moments. drowning in the Atlantic somewhere between New merch, and hunting for the wardrobe to Narnia. MEERA SASTRY ’23 hails from Los Angeles and York and London. CARY MOORE ’24 (pre-covid ’23) is a sophomore studies comparative literature. She is the new mother JIMIN KANG ’21 is a senior from Seoul, South from New York. She realized several things over her of a spunky cat who failed to beat teen pregnancy. SANDY YANG ’22 is a junior from northern New Korea and Hong Kong in the Spanish & Portuguese gap year, but her major was not one of them. Jersey studying English and dabbling in art now department. At Princeton she has worked mainly BATYA STEIN ’22 is a junior from central Jersey (it and then. You'll probably find her in Murray-Dodge in journalism, literary translation and creative non- MEGAN PAN ’22 is a junior from Short Hills, does exist) studying English and computer science. breaking the 1-2 cookies rule when the basement is fiction, but poetry has held—and will always hold—a NJ concentrating in comparative literature She can be found around campus eating ice cream, back open again. special place in her heart. with certificates in theater, creative writing, sitting on various rooftops, and trying to convince and Asian American studies. These days she people to play just one more round of anagrams BRIONY ZHAO ’24 is a part-time writer, part- SAL KANG ’24 (she/he/they) is a professional can mostly be found organizing her makeup with her. She does not believe in matching her socks. time-artist, and full-time squanderer/imp/ sluggard and occasional writer who spends most of collection, cuddling her husband pillow, and prevaricator from Beijing, China. Her preferred their free time sleeping and reading Anne Carson. sinking more hours into Stardew Valley. Due to SIERRA STERN ’24 is a freshman from Los Angeles superpower is the ability to speak in different She was born in South Korea. personal reasons, she is evil now. with no concrete major but a very severe Ernest tongues, but she can barely hold a pen with one Hemingway complex. When she isn’t asking herself tongue. She loves indie rock music, the smell LARA KATZ ’24 is currently planning to major RODRIGO PICHARDO ’21 is a senior from WWEDIHWAPYWOC (What Would Ernest Do If of linseed oil, food in Twin Peaks, and cats in in Comparative Literature with a certificate in San Jose, California majoring in Spanish with He Were A Plucky Young Woman of Color?), she is Murakami novels. To subscribe:

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