Tag: poetry
Inishkea
by Ian Gualtiere ’27 on February 5, 2026
Portfolio - Poetry
May the angels light our way tonight
on such a desolate island. Where seals
swim up the harbor mouth, birds take flight,
and sheep roam in octaves on green fields.
Boats offshore watch not us, but waves
that slap their sterns in a prolonged rock.
We’re left to the hills and stones, and caves
that fall darker and deeper than the loch.
No film nor image can capture the land;
a fertile moonscape that can subtly bloom
single houses, which have sunk into sand.
Names remain only on the slabs of doom
that remind us of these nights, where cruel
wind and water take no prayers in the rain.
Souls of our fathers hold an everlasting duel,
and our mothers hold their breaths from pain.
Sleeping a century later, this island holds
the remains of a generation that is lost.
Broken chimneys and windows have told
any passer that the sea around has a cost.
Leaving
by Grace Batsie ’28 on February 5, 2026
Portfolio - Poetry
“I’ll text you,” you say as you leave.
But we both know you might not.
The text thread is on borrowed time,
And it may be a miracle that you showed up
in the first place.
The expiration date has passed,
But then you show up again,
And it’s like everything is new again.
So, you may or may not text me after,
But you leaving,
Means I had you in the first place.
A Dark Lord
by Benedict Bergeron ’29 on February 5, 2026
Portfolio - Short Fiction
Immured in a darkling dungeon, you see the sun setting into night beyond the windowsill, which is sealed by a rusting gridiron. Clinging to the flaking bars, you bruise your knuckles as you strike the iron, desperate to capture a single ray, a single photon of light. A great hook of hot steel wraps around your neck and yanks you down. Choking, your body slams against the slimy stones and, looking up, there stands, enwreathed in dark garments which reek of former victims and somehow echo their screams long ceased, the Lord of Shadow, FAFSA. He leers over you and grips with fingers that glint with a slimy lustre, his odious hook, a staff of torment and agony. You gaze at the two pale lights that glitter beneath his hood, and in them lie dusky images and luminescent shadows of faces, contorted and gored; and his smile appears with teeth as white as snow and pearl gems. Lord FAFSA bellows a grim laugh that transcends the spoken word, piercing the mind and heart and soul with a dreadful terror. Behind your eyes well countless tears, and your throat catches with the struggling breaths of horror; the sheer evil of this profane creature from hell causes your lips to part in pitiful sobs. You rise, guided by this fell being, weeping profusely and ever desiring to flee, yet the room is darkness. The iciness of his wet fingers seeps through your shirt and chills your shoulder. With all of your might, you search for escape, dry your wailings, try to become whole again, but his ensorcelments are too potent. At last, he guides you to a chair and sits you down before an old, strobing computer screen. There are innumerable lines that must be filled, but half of it you do not understand. Through your blinding sobs, you ask him with a sniffle what each line is for; and, through his lips, which you can almost feel flapping behind your ear, his dark words and cold breath tell you in legal jargon everything you need to know. Yet still, you do not understand. He only repeats himself while you grow more and more confused. The strobing screen causes your eyes to burn and your brain to swell. As your deep sorrow, your pure, unabated agony augments with every passing moment, you beg him, “Please, please, I don’t want to do this. Let me go! Leave me alone!”
His quiet, mocking chuckle drips like thick sap into your ear, and he says, “You want me here … you need me here … I am your only hope.”
You know that he speaks the truth, and that makes your anguish all the more bloodcurdling.
At last, you pray, and that one photon you hoped for appears and bolts through the window like an arrow. Line by line, the form is filled, and the demon shrinks and shrivels into the harmless imp that it is. Your weeping ends, and the form is done. The door opens, rumbling on great steel hinges, and your family and loved ones rush in, hugging you and kissing you, having feared the worst. In that moment, after this uttermost evil of the world was revealed to you, you realize what is truly most important. Such joy! Such love! Such a putting of things in order!
Yet, as you leave that horrid dungeon, you can still feel FAFSA’s cold hands caress your shoulders, and you hear the whisper of his diabolical voice in your head.
“I will see you next year…”
Cave
by Grace Pappadellis ’29 on January 29, 2026
Portfolio - Poetry
The room is similar to that of a cave,
cold and quiet,
but not quite empty,
not quite vacant.
We string up glowing petals above,
the windows stay open,
barely a flash, just constant, waning, natural light.
A blanket of time, hours go by, warm and safe, the ease is innate.
Every item, a friendship crest, the incense holds the memories,
the first time we met, meek and hesitant,
the sun falls and is born again, marking another day of knowing you.
Forever we will live here.
No one can ever live here the same;
this cave holds the remnants of every step, every trace of eager stories,
loud, jubilant, peachy faces, an earnest, mutual bond.
We’ll shut the windows only to prevent the rain from spilling in.
s n o w
by Hanna Boudreau ’28 on January 29, 2026
Portfolio - Poetry
s
n
o
w
cover me—hide me—when I am overcome with woe
s
n
o
w
comfort me—console me—when I know not where to go
s
n
o
w
call me—christen me—with the name which you bestow
s
n
o
w
catch me—carry me—when I trip over my own shadow
s
n
o
w
coddle me—cradle me—like an old weeping willow
s
n
o
w
challenge me–captivate me—like the swirling art of Van Gogh
s
n
o
w
compliment me—celebrate me—as one does a beautiful rainbow
s
n
o
w
cure me—complete me—never let me go
The Poet’s Plight
by Benedict Bergeron ’29 on January 29, 2026
Portfolio - Poetry
I sit before my oaken table
As oft as I am able
With pen in hand and paper
My words, never stringing.
I try to be a shaper,
A song-maker, singing,
But inspiration lacks;
My purpose comes to naught.
I turn to trace my tracks,
But I have none begot.
Before my oaken table, I sit,
Not writing once, not one bit.
To me, this is a dreadful sight;
This is our curse: The Poet’s Plight.
The Last Stop
by Anonymous on January 22, 2026
Portfolio - Prose
He likes his coffee with milk and two sugars, his eggs scrambled, his toast burnt, and his barstool—the third one from the end of the counter. At least, he likes to think it’s his barstool. He’s been sitting there since he was a young boy, when his legs used to dangle underneath him like vines and a cheeseburger only cost 50 cents. He had a gap-toothed smile then, and a face full of freckles that have since metastasized into the age spots on the backs of his hands.
Time has stood still here, bolted to the ground like the base of the stool that he sits on. The frames fixed on the walls hold portraits of old beauty queens and faded snapshots of old hometown landmarks that were torn down years ago. Through it all, this room, with its chrome finishes, vinyl booths, and squeaking barstools has held down the fort, a last veteran among the rubble of the good old days. Back then, suited businessmen sat shoulder to shoulder in squadrons at the counter before catching the next train to the city. The trains barely run here anymore; he often feels like he sits at the last stop at the end of the universe.
A few years ago they tore off the old taupe wallpaper that sparkled under the haze of its own grime, memories smeared into its stripes by grubby-handed children covered in grease and ketchup. The new tile is teal and shiny and far too garish for so small a space. Worse, it is easily cleaned and he knows its slick, cool surface will not be able to grab memories by the hand the way the wallpaper could.
He orders his food and wishes that the walls could still talk and his legs could still dangle off the edge of his stool. His coffee is burnt and he knows his toast won’t be, so he sits at the end of the world and waits for nothing to change.
Psalm 155
by Clara Johnson ’26 on January 22, 2026
Portfolio - Prose
A Fragment of a Memory
I must have been a little thing to be so tangled in my mom’s arms. I must have been so small.
It is night. We rock back and forth in the blue rocking chair in the corner of the dark room. Shadowed branches scratch the windows and thunder gurgles, though no rain falls, not yet.
Scritch…Scratch…Rumble
It is night, and the thunder cracks this time, and the branches slam a little harder on the window. I feel the rumble in my throat and my stomach. I let out a little yelp, and my hands clench against the yellow plastic sippy cup.
It is night. It is stormy, but she feels like golden afternoon. She pulls me closer to her. She smells like old books and cinnamon tea. She smells like hot chocolate in my yellow plastic sippy cup. I must have been so small to be tangled in her ringlets.
It is night, and she does not sing. She does not sing except for one song every night. A single, listless note, high and sweet to drown out the storm
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.
Mama, what happened?
My Old Oak Tree
Weathered and tethered we return to the fields in the woods behind my parents’ house where once my bare feet squelched on soggy earth.
Where once there was a gateway to a deciduous world abounding in the hazy ecstasy of wonder which twisted through the stalwart poplars. That haze which entangled with the wildflowers at their base. Where once fairies wound flowers through my hair and daylight danced and flecked over the woods. Where once, we were warriors and mermaids and mages.
Where once, the oak tree stood.
But now we return, my sister and I, taller and with backs more rigid.
The wind whispers through the wooden squadron and softens their fragility into gentleness like mother’s arms, swaying and waving and staying. Like mother’s arms wrapped around you in the old blue rocking chair, smelling like cinnamon and paper. The wind like mother’s voice,
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.
Early in the morning, when the sun is still peaking and glancing, the dawn creaks, and the old mingles with the dawning new. The crickets croak on, and night owls still croon, and the moon holds steady above. But the sun haloes the horizon, and the morning doves chirp too, and mingle with the night sounds.
Everything is cast in gold or maybe silver, cast in the surreal light of almost.
So we return, my sister and I, to collect wildflowers from the fields in the woods behind our house.
Behind our old house.
We sink our feet into the earth like yesterday and tread over leaves dried and fallen, their crunch softened to a rustle by the fall of early spring rains. It smells like rain too, like rain on the earth. What is that smell? Someone told me once it’s bacteria in the soil that the rain coaxes or wrenches into the air, but someone else told me it’s the blood of god defused—how different are those things anyway? Wildflowers peak through the rotting leaves, which smell like bacteria or maybe god. They press on, undaunted by the decay, the winsome smell of almost. We will put the wildflowers in glass bottles of my favorite peach tea and press them in thin pages of my mother’s Bible to capture them, in the moment between.
How long can we stay here between, before the sun crests and the wildflowers die?
How long can we stay here…before we have to move?
How long do you think?
How long?
Maybe it’s Merlot
by Riley Londraville ’27 on December 11, 2025
Portfolio - Poetry
The cafe’s website read: Bring in a nonperishable food or a personal care item, we’ll cover half
your tab, and we’ll match your donation, item for item.
A chance she couldn’t pass up. The girl notices a stain on the cement outside the cafe and
wonders where it came from. It could be red wine or something more sinister. Inside, she takes
note of the pin on the jacket of the man who stands in front of her. Make America Great Again.
She wonders when it was so great.
Yesterday, she had watched footage from 1963 in Birmingham, AL. The Children’s Crusade. Torn skin and flesh flushed. Pressure piercing through fire hoses. Justice too long delayed is justice denied.
And later, she saw a video filmed by shaky hands. Skin is still torn on pavement today. Rusted
stains leaving people wondering: Is it red wine or something more sinister?
“Ma! Ma!” the boy cried out, trying to stabilize the camera. Useless evidence without due
process. He sounds young, although the youth in his voice could be his primal fear taking over, deprivation of nurture on the line as his mother’s face scrapes across cement and crimson fills the cracks. Pebbles stab in her skin and her mouth and her palms.
“I have papers,” she says to nobody. The ICE agent readjusts his mask. It almost slipped while he was just doing his job. Making America Great Again.
In line, the girl holds a can of chicken breast that her grandma had sent her to college with.
“You’ll need it,” her grandma said, but the girl didn’t believe she would open the can. They were both right. This was the last day of the promotion. A nine dollar coffee becomes $4.50, and a family without their regular SNAP benefits can have some canned chicken breast. What she refused to eat is another’s fortune. Justice too long delayed is justice denied.
At the counter, she asks the barista for a latte
“Hot or iced?”
Anything but ice.
Make America Great Again.
The barista tells her she can drop her can in the box up front with the rest. Aluminum spills out of cardboard, but she had hoped for more. It’s been eight days without money loaded onto EBT cards, and the president threw a party. Jewels drip from skin in giant glasses. Flappers strutting by, their lavish headpieces held high. Feathers float to the floor as the billionaires grin and mothers can’t buy formula. The girl just learned that children make up 39 percent of all SNAP benefit recipients. Another Children’s Crusade. Justice too long delayed is justice denied.
The girl walks past the stained cement on her way out. She hopes it’s red wine, not something more sinister. She wonders if those billionaires would notice, if their expressions would even change. They’re too far gone, she decides. Drunk with greed, their stoned faces would stay cold as ice.
Make America Great Again.
Moonlit Blanket
by Grace Pappadellis ’29 on December 11, 2025
Portfolio - Poetry
Fitful night sleep,
flitting of birds,
they dance like tree ornaments in a cove of blonde light.
I watch from my window,
the streets are bleak and clean.
Will the snow fall as it did last year?
My lively breath has been rapid and full of anguish,
let me stare at the sky.
A glimpse of a star
created a blanket for my heart, a quilt of fabric, spun from moonlight,
the fairytales you read about,
threads of light, feathers, flakes of ice and snow.
Spun around, fast and blizzard-like,
the colors are tangible, clear, the material falls over me,
protective, sheeny, its magic cures me of my restlessness.
I can sleep with the intertwinement, the rays of the moon, all in one place.
I don’t need snow as I did last season.
I would never turn down its arrival,
only delegate it as another layer.
Moonlight trickles in through my window,
Winter will never be the same.