As fall approaches, summer lingers like a guest turning back on your doorstep, not quite ready to let your time together end. Summer smiles and offers one last story, one last laugh together, one last moment before saying her goodbye. She is the taste of watermelon clinging to your lips before you take a sip of water, the child giving your hand one last squeeze before letting go on their first day of school.  

 

Like summer, the poetry, prose, and art in this issue will linger with you, not ready to leave your thoughts long after you've finished taking in the words. They seesaw between summer and fall, between mother and child, between love and loss. In “Talisman,” Margaret Lynch writes about surviving cancer, teetering between the joy of life and fear of death. In “what it is like to be six in summertime,” debut poet Anna Han pens the boundless possibilities that bloom in a child's heart.  

 

In “Farewell to Halki,” Sherri Moshman-Paganos crafts a story of almost love and unescapable regret. And in our cover piece “Below us,” debut artist Jake Huang captures a single leaf, freshly fallen, its edges slowly curled in demise. The dark ground cradles it, turning what has ended back in a fertile home for the next seedling. As the golden hour of the sunset washes over us, we can pretend these long summer days will last forever, even as the glittering stars touch us on the shoulder one by one and lead us into the night. Read more here...