Dress-Up

I wear silver, not gold.

There’s a mezuzah around my neck,
gifted to me by my mother.
You borrowed the gold wristwatch she gave me.
And without a second-thought,
dropped it
in this sea-of-a-city.
I’ll never see it again.

Now I wear a stainless-steel Casio. I bought it myself.

There’s a ringing deep in my ears,
as I wait for us to play dress-up.
There are at least three-hundred ways to tell you I miss you.

Your emerald-earrings sit in a drawer next to my bed.
You don’t have to worry—
they’re safe with me.

I’ll return them
if you trace the outline of a heart
on my chest
with your index-finger.

Veterans of Foreign Wars

I only leave my hall of residence to buy vanilla ice cream cones.

As I go past the VFW,
I consider turning back,
but I need something sweet.

When I was nine and full of rage,
my mother took me to get an ice cream cone.
I only ate half.
We drove to my enemy’s house
and threw the rest on their lawn.

Drive internal conflict in manual.

Tonight, I eat the whole cone and drive

past the veterans of foreign wars,
past the farmhouses,
past my adversaries,

all the way to J.T. Reid’s Gun & Cigar store.

Grace Biddle is an English major from State College, Pennsylvania. This summer they worked as a content marketing intern for Fusemachines in New York City. In her free time, Grace enjoys making matzah-ball soup, pumping iron, and sitting around the house.

Lucy Hagge is a sophomore from Dallas, Texas. She is currently undeclared, but is considering a psychology or rhetoric major. In addition to photography, Lucy enjoys playing the guitar and mixing music. Through photography, Lucy strives to find the beauty in things that often go unnoticed. All photos in this edition were taken in Maine.