Invisible City makes the unseen seen through words and art. From unheard voices to imagined landscapes, what was once hidden is now visible.
Saint
"Once when I was seven, I locked myself in the bathroom because my brother was threatening to tie a firecracker to each of my wrists and explode me like a melon. It was my cousin Henry who knocked on the door and coaxed me out with a dollar bill."Read the short story →Criminal Intent
"I was using my finger
to shoot imaginary bullets
at the stars
when one of them
fell from the sky"
Read the poem →Bananas
"Eat the grapes, or the plums. Leave the bananas,
his mother said. Bananas were only for special occasions.
When he went to someone’s home,
if offered bananas, he wasn’t supposed to take them.
It was considered rude, his mother had told him.
They are too much."
Read full poem →Reading Between The Lines
"The sidewalks in Obalende are littered with market people who display their paltry wares to consumers—pedestrian and in transit. The roads are narrow, and cars barely fit their width through with ease."Read the essay →Visibility Signals
"Pulled from the Anacostia,
a remora hitched to the Potomac,
Sligo Creek draws its stomach
away from the sculpted cage
of its ribs, dupe for the trickle-down
of everyone else’s appetite,"
House-sitting
"In the summer between my MFA and PhD, I housesat for a professorial couple from my graduate program in New Mexico. They had a beautiful house: nothing outrageous, just a nice two-bedroom-one-bathroom with a backyard. I loved it. The floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room overlooked the mountains and lavender in the front yard."Read the essay →Ants
"You talked about the light
hung at the end of the pier
being muzzled by dense fog,
but I saw a suspension bridge
ending in cloud, such that
it wasn’t clear if the bridge
cut through the cloud or if
the cloud cut into the bridge,"
Read the poem →Conjoined Twins
"Two sisters, their craniums joined,share a single brain, together they
attend law school, walking
side by side, unable to look directly
into each other’s eyes, or ever
spend a moment alone,"
Lost Mothers
"My son returned a month after the funeral. He was sleeping sweetly in his bed. I wanted to wake him right away. I wanted to shake him gently and to hold him against my body, while telling him how much I had missed him and loved him. But I didn’t dare. What if he were actually dead, again?"Read the short story →THE ANSWER IS NO (FIRST ATTEMPT AT FINAL WORK)
"We begin with the myth of potential, end with a horizon
of blank canvases stretching into infinity."
In a Time of Want
"I’m so sorry. We did
all we could.
Another mother
might cut off all her hair.
I grow mine long
and longer."
Fall 2020
Caroline Read | Editor in Chief
Rebeca Flores | Design & Production Editor
Megan Bounds | Production Assistant
Emily Hoang | Fiction Editor
Darci Flatley | Nonfiction Editor
Katrina Monet | Assistant Nonfiction Editor
Isabella Welch | Assistant Nonfiction Editor
Daniel Callahan | Poetry Editor
Catherine Karnitis | Poetry Editor
Sydney Vogl | Assistant Poetry Editor
Nicholas Neyhouse | Assistant Poetry Editor
Kari Miya | Assistant Poetry Editor
Laleh Khadivi | Faculty Advisor
Staff: AJ Crame, Ariel Vincent, Danielle Williams, Gregg Burdon,
JP Austin, Jeff Wincek,
Kyle Lung, Logan Bliss, Maggie Benson,
Michael Lopez, Patricia Kalman, Randy James,
Westin McDorman,
Morgan Fonseca
Special thanks to former Editor in Chief, Sara Fan &
Production & Design editor, Crystal Theresa Ejanda.
Thank you for your continued support and dedication.