Founded in the fall of 1991, Laurel Moon is Brandeis' oldest, national literary publication. Each issue we publish features original work from undergraduate students.
There was the thick smell of pool chlorine, the Roman
designs, a sense of those walls closing; the unicorn
tapestries meeting your eyes, the hard to ignore crosses in
the old chapel where the portrait of His equal hangs
above the shelves of books—some forbidden knowledge:
How to have fun without boys at an all-girl’s school.
The week I commit to wearing my bra, the school tapes off
the walkways in the garden hedges. The custodian hung up
another donated tapestry—a jeweled lady, hand extended to
the bearded unicorn. On the walk to the theater Serena
talks about words like damn, dickhead, shit, fuck (!)
I’m almost caught pouring butter on my popcorn.
Google tells me unicorns symbolize God, passion, virginity.
I dream of roses, engraved fabrics, the air of trimmed grass
that is painful to breathe. The hedges in the garden easier
to hide in this part of Thought. Wake up with the slick
metallic smell soaked into the throwaway sheets Mom
stretched over the bed last night. More knowledge
we don’t speak of.
Strict: even in the heart of the city, we couldn’t identify our
state fruit, the dried knickknacks we wore around necks on
Game Days. We concealed those disgusting peaches in our
hoodies, wrapping our fingers around their prickly needles
—each time surprised to learn they were delicate.
Lillian Morton is a writer and undergraduate at Colorado State University. Her short fiction, In Mason’s Time, was awarded honorable mention for CU Boulder’s 2021 Thompson Writing Awards. Born in Southern China, she lives in Fort Collins with her miniature schnauzers.