Founded in the fall of 1991, Laurel Moon is Brandeis' oldest, national literary publication. Each issue we publish features original work from undergraduate students.
Citrus rinds
and roly polies, the limes from which you've sucked
all the juice. Flowers my mother pressed in a book
about the Kennedy’s, and my father's favorite
baseball cap. The sunrise from when I woke up again
today. Spare buttons I can’t match to any of my shirts,
a new toothbrush, and one of the letters I wrote myself
in seventh grade, when I wanted to be a different person.
Things I put away in November and am finding again
as I dig through the holes in my dungaree pockets.
Promises tangled in lint and loose threads, the crusts of
bread that didn’t break easily. Splinters from the swing set
we tore down, and the kitchen tiles in my first apartment,
cracked and caked with spaghetti sauce and spilt wine.
Grass stains on yellow linen; my lover’s laugh
as I pull a funny face. Spills of flour from birthday cakes,
from burnt pancakes we still ate anyways, and tomatoes sliced
just thin enough. The wind overhead, warm and expansive and
as endless as my sun-streaked yearning.
Formatted differently in Blacklist Journal
Courtney Garvey is a senior at Brandeis University, where she studies Creative Writing, History, and European Cultural Studies. Her work has appeared in Peach Magazine, The Emerson Review, Blacklist, and Laurel Moon.