Penumbra Spring 2025

P E N U M B R

Penumbra 2025

Volume 35

The Art & Literary Journal of Stanislaus State

penumbra (pi-num ‘bre): n. 1. A partial shadow, as in an eclipse, between regions of complete shadow and complete illumination. 2. The partly darkened fringe around a sunspot. 3. An outlying, surrounding region; periphery; fringe. [Lat. paene, almost – Lat. umbra, shadow]

ISBN: 979-8-3507-4701-0

All About Penumbra

Since 1989, Penumbra has proudly published poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and visual art by contributors from the Stanislaus region, throughout the U.S., and abroad. Our staff is composed entirely of students: they make all editorial decisions, including which submissions are accepted and how the journal is designed.

Because new students staff the journal every year, Penumbra constantly evolves. Each year, we receive hundreds of art and literary submissions, and through an anonymous voting process, we decide which works to accept. Students are responsible for all editing and design choices, creating the finished journal by the end of the semester.

Every Spring, English 4019: Editing Literary Magazines is open to students with junior or higher academic standing. Students from all majors are welcome: the course offers professional training in areas including art, business, and communications. Annually, we launch the new issue with readings on the CSU Stanislaus campus near the end of the spring term.

In Fall term, interested students enroll in English 4200/5200: Studies in E-Publishing, where they learn to create content for our website, Penumbraonline.com. In addition to podcasts, reviews, and blogs, students produce online, themed editions of literature and art and publish chapbooks of poetry.

Thank you to those who contributed to Penumbra 2025. Your talent makes the journal what it is. Please continue sending us your work: submissions will open for Penumbra 2026 this December.

Penumbra Staff

Faculty Advisor

Dr. Tony Perrello

Editors-in-Chief

Martina Bekasha

Allison Westlund

Nix Carbone-Deep

Reviews Editor

Reagan Oliveira

Editing & Design Staff

Aioema Ahio

Rylie Asuncion

Ysbethnydia De La Cruz

Malina Duran

Monica Garnica

Emily Giraldes

Atiana Hernandez

Chandler Hocking

Normandie Lee

Marcio Maragol

Reagan Oliveira

Estrella Rubio

Julian Saenz-Payne

Emily Torres

Jeremiah Washington

Last Burn

By Jordan Jones

Medium: Acrylic paint, iridescent tape and wood burning on wood panel

Glimpsing the Dancing

By Daithí Kearney

The blurry image sharpened, Revealed a perfect shape

Disturbed it kicked its little legs

To dance a mighty jig.

Then it rolled around a bit

Happy in its home

Where the dance develops Before this world it roams.

You squeezed my hand and smiled, We were clearly overjoyed

To share the special moment when We first saw our baby dance

The Earth Consumes

By Schuyler Becker

Emerging from a sea of decay

A tower prevails Their last soldier strains against the noose of a Mother oppressed

A phantom in the mist

She traces the mortar and steel grasps for the falling stones as they drift like a murder of crows to a lonely soil below

This ethereal island

A lighthouse for the haunted anthropocene

No end in sight except for the beginning

Nailbeds carved from moss trace every curve and edge of the evidence of man

Emerald-gilded mausoleum for the destitute or the divine

As earth reclaims her sky

The woods stand sentry gaining a flush and fervor again

The appetite of a ravaged land knows no boundary

There is peace in the reclamation of her space atop each mountain and in the lungs of every valley song Charred limbs refined as a phoenix from the fire.

El Cuentista

By Fatima Gutierrez

Medium: Oil on cellophane and wood panel

The Old Man and the Plea

By Eric Green

These days we have plenty of worrisome things to keep us up at night. Such as inflation, crime, and now heaven forbid, we hear an asteroid could at any time destroy the Earth and all living creatures who inhabit the planet.

That last part about the Earth blowing up would certainly be inconvenient. But as an old man, I have my own fish to fry.

After many years of being gainfully employed, I see now that as a retiree, I don’t have enough money to live on. So, I need a job and I better get one real soon.

You may ask--how old am I? I’m old enough to know that you can color me slow, with no flow, but I can still roll if the price is right.

It’s basically my own darn fault how I got into this situation. How? Because with too much leisure time, I blew most of my money gambling at the casino. I lost what little was left of it on the stock market when it tanked during the Covid-19 horror show. So, people, with my piddling pension, I’m dirt poor. Meaning this old man needs money and he needs it now.

Mr. or Ms. Prospective Employer, sir or madam. You’re probably much younger than me. But it doesn’t bother me to take orders from somebody who could be your grandpa. Foolish pride doesn’t matter when we’re talking about sink or swim. Take a chance on this old man and hire me.

I’ll do anything you ask. Which is better for you than taking on some young whippersnapper all full of drive and sickening ambition who thinks he has a future in life. I suppose I don’t have that much more future. However, that’s not what bothers me at the moment.

Don’t worry about how I’ll hold up on the job because what old people like me only care about is getting the job done the right way. However long it takes. If you’re concerned I might have a heart attack while on the job and that I might sue you for negligence if I’m still sentient (come to think of it, not a bad idea), forget about it. That’s on me, not you.

If you still insist on knowing how old I am, think William (Captain Kirk Star Trek) Shatner 93-years-old, think Methuselah 969-years-old. Think Betty White before she went black and called it a day. Or Queen Elizabeth II before she left it to King Charles III to rule what’s left of the Commonwealth. I’m not quite at that age but you get the drift of where I’m going with this.

Genteel old ladies like Betty White and Queen Elizabeth were good role models for how to live a jolly long time. However, they certainly didn’t need money like I do and I need it because you have to eat to keep yourself going even If I’m not going all that fast these days. Even if I’m not going that fast, without dough I might need to involuntarily fast and without enough fuel in my tank that would really make me go into reverse. I should be congratulated for getting old because that means I’ve lived through thick and thin. That’s an achievement one could admire even if the callow youth of today

and tomorrow doesn’t want to think or imagine they could ever get this old.

I’m not seeking pity. I reckon lots of my fellow humans around the world are in far more dire straits than where I am. But I’m out here hungry and eager for work. If only somebody will give me a job.

It’s not like I haven’t tried. The other day, for instance, I walked into my favorite fast-food palace and after getting a refill on my senior coffee, I asked the young manager if he might hire me. Junior gave me a strange look and asked what I could do and I said I can do anything he wanted. He said he’d get back to me.

I’m still waiting to hear from him.

Then recently I walked into a department store and asked if they needed anybody to sell shirts or skirts or a shoe or two. They asked me a few questions about my background and said to fill out an application form. Which I did. But when it came to the part where they asked my age, I left it blank on purpose. That must have messed up their computer system or something for I never got a call back asking me to report to work. I figured what the heck, if I put down my real age, they probably wouldn’t hire me anyway.

Same thing happened when I went to the movies on discount seniors day and applied for a job selling popcorn or taking tickets from the paying customers. I never heard back about any of that either. The movie also wasn’t any good. But for $3.50, who’s complaining?

So, Mr. and Ms. Employer. I stand here ready and able to work. All you have to do is call and I’ll be there quicker than you can say Jack Robinson. You know where to find me.

Two cars collided and a wing mirror flew from one and hit a fig tree, Ficus Sycomorus, and then rebounded, caught me full between my unbelieving eyes, a catastrophe.

I squalled loud and a mottled man, unboiled, in a pac-a mac and worn corduroys called an ice-cream ambulance.

The monstrous wildness of it all, a Eurasian chaffinch caught in glue or lime, me latched.

I held a grubby Scottex to my crimson head (why did I never carry clean tissues?) as I bled out on the gentle side street afore the big-eyed passers-by aghast, yet kindly enquiring.

The ambulance man, Giuseppe Serra I recall, told me to hold stoic as he had it all under control. He applied pressure to the unbolted wound and I awoke briefly two weeks later; I know not where.

I left this place wrapped in wrinkled plastic, an absurd death like Chrysippus of Soli who died of laughter after he saw a donkey try to eat his sweetened figs.

Figs and donkeys

By Mark A. Hill

By Terry Brinkman

Last artefact and luxury in place, entrance finally sealed, silence contemplates its new domain, regulating time’s pace. Figures on a wall, colours redundant, forever hold unseen poses, Horus-like eyes blinded by darkness, afterlife reduced to a world this tomb encloses.

A century slips by. At Troy, Achilles screams revenge, killing captives, then Hector, a city roiling armies destroy. All is motion –except here. A flake of gold flutters from the throne, unseen, unheard, an explosion to disturb the depths where decibels have long been unknown.

A thousand years pass like a breeze. Alexander advances to the Hindu Kush, Persia his, all opposition crushed with ease. In Egypt, he visited the Oracle at Siwa, marvelled at each immemorial site, unaware that, here, the crumbling shaft of a chariot shifts in its realm of eternal night.

Athens and Sparta rise and fall, Rome has come and gone. Lesser satellites leave their mark; obscure scratches on a wall. Galileo turns his attention to the sky, observes each planet and star. Meanwhile, on another wall, the netherworld is traversed by the Sun-god, Ra.

Word has spread of a virgin birth, of joy and hope and wondrous change. But here, a warp in a portable shrine is news, mirth, once common,

By Neal Mason

interred in silence and solitude, impervious to emotion or shock. Yesterday ossifies, long-expended words and breath compressed beneath sand and rock.

After Columbus set sail, the horizon expanded, curve growing to accommodate increasing winds of change, or impending gale. One boat, small, made of calcite, remains still, becalmed. Encompassed, the Kingdom of the Nile, with all its trade, ports and history waits, embalmed.

Two trumpets, not kissed for three thousand years, latent notes stored with all the passion of chances missed, find surrogate release in Wagner’s brass. The gods’ sons and daughters, with altered names, express themselves once more in northern, summer quarters.

The Great War thunders by, unnoticed here, the tomb’s guardian figurines mute, expressing nothing that equates with a sigh – until, suddenly, after more than three millennia, a tentative tapping. Howard Carter calls, rapping before breaking and entering, removing treasure and displaying death to a world struck dumb, then clapping.

I wouldn’t know where to start: the birth or the hunt, the flesh or its bones, the night a heart opened, then twisted into an eagle.

I watch its wings thud against flight, a sound so awful in its unlikely grace. Sometimes, old habits sing loud.

If Icarus was a woman, she may have flown too close to the moon. What would’ve happened then?

Medusa’s stars peel their eyelashes, separate to unblink. I can’t tell if this is what they call a twinkle.

The moon undresses the sun from its skin, detangles its glow and sits just as it is—a gunmetal stone. The bird almost flies past it.

I think about the human heart. How when still alive, its breathing looks so much like a cry for help. At dawn, the eagle writhes into a woman.

Song after Jessica Fisher

By Suchita Senthil Kumar

monochrome nature

By Joshua Colon

Evening again, and the ghost of my grandfather shuts the sliding door closed. Barn coat wrapped around his stocky frame. Galoshes snug to his feet. Leather gloves fit around his gnarled hands.

He traverses across the field in the cold. January light seeping through the trees. Through him. Blues, blacks, and purples. The color of a dying nail. His breath molded above him. The moon a fingernail in the sky.

In the distance, the hounds bay. Hungry and restless. Ready to hunt. In the distance, the barn windows come to life. Yellow light in the navy-blue dark. Rickety foundations through the haze. Planks rotten. Boards abused by nails. Fingernails abused by hammers.

He steps through the back door, a specter carrying his rifle and buckets of food for the dogs, one in each hand. Lumbering through the dirt path, to the kennel. And after, toward the woods.

I’m frozen in my place, barely awake in the candlelight of the house. Yearning to follow his path across the field. I almost hear him. Breath ragged. Nose dripping. He speaks to me. Calling my name.

I listen intently to the sound of his prayers. To the sound of his footprints in the snow.

Akron, OH

By Daniel Letz

Here I am carried, here I descend

By Hannah Levy

“All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.”

- Toni Morrison

“Have you also learned that secret from the river; that there is no such thing as time? That the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the ocean and in the mountains, everywhere and that the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the past nor the shadow of the future.”

- Hermann Hesse, “Siddhartha”

In one of my earliest memories, I’m standing in a shower. Hot water trickles down my arm. I’m watching my hand, fingers outstretched. This is what magic feels like: rivers flowing out of my body, like the rivers flowing out of Eden. I return to this visual again and again and again throughout my life. The open palm, the water. That quiet feeling of power.

What did it feel like to step into a river for the first time? A bewitching pull, a wet grip around my ankles. A sensation entirely distinct from the forward-backward lull of ocean waves, the circular swirl, the return to shore. A different energy, a stirring, an awakening. A promise of voyage. An intoxicating, Earth-shaping potential pulsing through the current.

A river is many things because a river moves through many places. Constantly changing, adapting. Even the concept of a river defies definition. Geographer Nick Middleton writes, “Our friend the Oxford English Dictionary has it that a river is ‘a copious natural stream of water flowing in a channel to the sea or a lake, etc.’ This definition serves for many rivers but not for all. Rivers in very cold places do not flow all of the time. Neither do most rivers in deserts.” The truth is, many rivers live and die and are reborn. In this way, a river’s absence can say as much as its presence: I am here when I am not here. Death is an ephemeral state.

Rivers are world-makers, sculptors. A cradle for civilizations past, present, and future. Language, ideas, and art traveling upstream and down. Creative expressions of source and spirit. Pieces of the sky transformed, life bubbling up from the spring. They are threads that weave earth to sea, ropes that bind, natural arteries that tie us to our land. But rivers hold contradictions: they connect and separate all at once. Rivers are borders, boundaries, obstacles between freedom and imprisonment.

Spiritually, river water is associated with liminal spaces and expanded states of consciousness. In religious texts, rivers are frequently the birthplace of profound visions, a sacred arena for journey work, for initiating flow, for metamorphosis. They are thresholds, mythic corridors to lands unknown. Taschen’s Book of Symbols refers to river crossing as “a transition and a metaphor for the possibility of traveling between the mind’s two shores, the conscious and familiar shore and the unconscious and farther shore.” In Greek mythology, the land of the dead was surrounded by five rivers: Acheron (the river of woe), Cocytus (the river of lamentation), Phlegethon (the river of fire), Lethe (the river of forgetfulness), and Styx (the river of hate). Five rivers, five fingers, five pathways snaking through the underworld. …

In therapy, I talk about the rivers in my body. The one hundred billion tiny rivers of neurons in my brain, the rivers of electricity that allow me to think and walk and breathe and swallow and feel everything so deeply. These are rivers only I can travel, underground rivers, ones that cascade inward. Rivers that coil into themselves, a watery ouroboros. Thoughts on loop, fears that linger. Rivers I want to control, rivers I want to run dry.

There are rivers that only certain people access, that only certain souls attempt to explore. Rivers shared between us like redwood tree roots and mycelial ribbons, intertwining in a poetic mycorrhizal dance. Calling out to each other for attention, for sustenance, for healing. These are sensual rivers of salt and sorrow, of euphoria and ecstasy. They flood like the Nile: a lush over flow, a trail of fertile soil in their wake.

And then, of course, there are rivers of blood, ferrying life into and out of my heart. Ancestral rivers, channels brimming with shame and guilt, powerlessness, terror, otherness, Jewishness. Fast-flowing rivers that lead to co-dependency and addiction and mental illness. I look at my six-year-old and pray that these rivers are shallow in her, that these creeks evaporate with time, with gentle practice. She tells me there is a badness inside of her that she wants to scratch away, and I think about how the word “river” can be traced back to its Proto-Indo-European roots, from *h₁reyp- meaning “to scratch, tear, cut.” I think about how deep inside a river’s undulating, serpentine body there is a fierce, carving force. Rivers can be violent, desperate, can plunge and surge to form waterfalls and whitewater rapids. Rivers are wild and willful. We build our dams but rivers yearn to be free.

…

It’s August. I am mostly naked in the emerald water of the Yuba River, feeling the current’s strength as I cling to volcanic basalt and granite, my body pushing up against gravity. The water touching my thighs comes from the crest of the Sierra Nevada, twisting and winding 100 miles, descending 7000 feet in the process. My shoulders tingle in the afternoon heat. I lift my hand out of the water and watch tiny drops fill with sunlight before they fall off my fingertips. I feel an old longing inside of me rise up. I want to be carried. I want to descend. I want to accept movement, change, impermanence. I think about this river’s patience, its persistence, its wildness. Rivers shape the earth just by showing up, by existing, by finding their way. And I think, for the first time, maybe I can do that, too.

Bleeding Heart

By Annabelle Thao

Medium: Digital art

Grief in the Forgotten Hours

By Schuyler Becker

I feel the soul disappearing in the autumn rewind

If only these branches of my life didn’t become so brittle

Not a single heart can hear my leaves fall over the rush and crescendos of traffic lines, red and gold Christmas lights, wine-drenched nights We recede into merriment’s shadow the forgotten that never forget

You and I are the same for we tend the unseen like an oath

I feel the soul shrinking back into a vacant sleep

By Gabriella Bourang

Medium: Prismacolor pencils on toned sketch paper

Last Elegy

Jon Veinberg, Fresno, 1947-2017

By Christopher Buckley

The clouds won’t open to the evening light, a plane going over, rumbling up there unseen. . . .

The other day, I saw a choir of waxwings depart all at once— a sudden rush of air, emptying even silence from the trees.

I looked through the grey scrambled branches and gave up speculating before I paused to think . . . no point in looking for you among the scattered stars that always whispered to us about death, that worm in our blood— where else was there to look?

Not one feather of a dove floating down from Chinese elms along E. Brown, dusty sycamores on Van Ness—so much for wonders and signs. Still, I see you standing on your porch, scanning the block for one of our compadres, running late again, low on cash, on hope. . . .

First rain in months and I look down the street that ends somewhere at the sea, and know there are no secrets left to keep for the dead. . . .

By Joshua Colon

Intervals

By Ilyssa Chavez

THE WATERS OF LETHE

By Salvatore Salerno

Weary of carrying my will, I lay me down onto this old raft, let my body sink to still its pace, let my mind go out unmoored from this place

Slow waters of Lethe, take me into the darkness onto your stream, forget myself easy for a gliding relief, however strange that journey, however brief oblivion seems

I’ll Be Waiting for You Here

By Mark Ifanson

Hi Milo. How are you feeling today?

What?

Hi Milo. This is a very nice beach, isn’t it?

Who is this?

How does the sand feel between your toes?

It’s...It’s OK I guess. Feels pretty good, actually. Who are you?

Take a look at your legs, Milo.

They’re all cut up, and burned. What happened to me?

You’re OK now Milo. Can you feel the cool water on your wounds? How does that feel?

It stung at first, but now it feels soothing. What’s going on here?

You’re walking on the edge of the surf on a deserted beach. It’s very scenic, by the way.

And who are you?

I’m the seashell you picked up off the beach, Milo. Let me ask, why did you pick up a seashell and hold it to your ear like you did just now?

I did it so I could hear the ocean, I guess.

Right. You are walking along the beach, with small waves breaking at your feet, and yet you picked up a seashell to hear the ocean when the ocean is all around you. Why would you do that?

Well, I don’t know, really. When you put it that way it sounds pretty stupid doesn’t it?

Not stupid Milo, just instinctive. You did it without thinking.

Sorry.

Nothing to be sorry about. It’s just something you did.

There’s no one else here?

Right, it’s just the two of us, Milo.

And we are where?

We are at the beach. A beach from your memory. Why?

Because we are talking about it. So, we are here.

Your answers are vague.

Sometimes, yes. I’m happy to tell you what I know, except when I think you need to figure things out on your own.

Am I dead?

Do you feel dead?

How does dead feel?

I don’t know, I’ve never been dead. But that’s why I was asking you how you feel. How do you feel?

I feel... OK, I guess. So, I’m dead?

Look at your chest, Milo, and tell me what you see.

I’m wounded. Looks like a bullet entry wound, low in my chest. But it doesn’t hurt. Some water has splashed on it and it’s soothing. So I’m dead. Was I in a war? Was I on the right side?

Yes Milo, you’re dead. And you were in a war, and it does not matter what role you

played, because you were mortally wounded, and now you are here. There are many wars in your world with many sides, with combatants and non-combatants, and everyone thinks they are on the right side. Once you are dead it doesn’t matter anymore.

And what is this, heaven?

Does it feel like heaven?

How would heaven feel?

Tell me, how do you feel?

I feel OK, I guess. Content. This is a nice beach, but I don’t think it’s heaven. No angels, no music, no overwhelming feelings of joy. Is this hell?

What do you think hell would feel like, Milo?

Pain. Horrible pain. So no, I don’t think this is hell. Maybe purgatory?

What would purgatory feel like, Milo?

I don’t know. Purgatory is just a word for me; I’m not very religious and haven’t given it all that much thought. So, I guess I’m just here, is that it?

Yes, you’re just here.

Are we going someplace?

Would you like to go someplace, Milo?

Am I going to be reincarnated?

Would you like to be reincarnated, Milo?

I don’t know. What would I come back as?

What would you like to come back as?

I’m not sure. Do I really have a choice?

No; it’s already determined. And no, before you even ask, I can’t tell you.

Can’t, or won’t?

Won’t. Here’s why. Right now you are anxious because you don’t know what you will come back as. That is unfortunate. But if I tell you, then you will focus on missed opportunities and become much more anxious about all the other things you won’t come back as. You’ll just have to trust me on that, sorry.

What will happen to you?

I’m a seashell. I’ll stay here and become part of the beach as wave action slowly grinds me into sand.

And then what?

I’ll be here until you come back.

After I die again?

Yes, Milo, after you die again.

So, I’ll come back to this beach and you’ll be a seashell again?

Probably not. When you come back it will be in the context of a very pleasant memory from your most recent life, and I will appear as a component of that memory. Then we will have a conversation like this again, with you asking questions as you prepare for your next life.

Will I remember any of this? Will you?

You will not consciously remember any of this, but some of this experience will be deep in your subconscious. I will remember everything.

What will you do while I’m gone?

I’ll be here, waiting for you to come back.

Just me? It could be a long time before I come back. Don’t you have others you do this for?

I’m here only for you. I remember everything for you, so you don’t have to. It would be too much for you to process between lives.

That seems very sad. Lonely, even.

That is very empathetic of you Milo, thank you for that. No, I won’t be lonely, I’ll have all your prior lives to reflect on until I see you again.

So...You are me, somehow?

Yes. I am so glad you figured that out, you often don’t get that far before you leave me. I’m the part of you that stays behind.

The water is all around me now. It’s warm. Shadows. Noises. There’s a commotion of some sort; I’m scared.

Please don’t be scared Milo, you are about to start over. Safe travels, my friend. I’ll be waiting for you here.

The Fever Dream Screams GET ME OUT OF HERE! OH GODS, MAKE IT STOP!!!

By Andres Jimenez

Medium: Archival ink from Micron pens on paper

Nature vs. Nurture

By Aioema Ahio

she was born with silver rays on her skin Moon protected her from the taint of sin, fleeting moments of safety and relief just five months when the moonlight had to leave,

the loss of maternal warmth left her scarred for thousands of miles kept them apart, Father searched for a replacement for love six years passed ‘til he saw Sun up above,

like Icarus with his wings, she was lured for she thought her happiness was secured, to have peace no one ever spoke of Moon did not want Sun to go away so soon,

she tried to endure life in the harsh heat and put thoughts of crescents in the backseat, she tried to be a good daughter to Sun and be grateful for all this star had done,

torn between two celestial beings one gave her life, but one taught her meanings, with Moon’s eyes she let her tears become stars as Sun’s strict teachings became psycho-scars,

she had Moon’s laugh and passion with the pen and the want to learn which Sun had given, she had the same smile that lit up the night and blinding faith derived from heaven’s light,

a daughter of both or daughter of none not wanting either bond to be undone, should she choose which woman to call mother if love for one would betray the other,

she wanted Moon to be more than a ghost and for Sun to be who she needed most, the mystical glow or the great scorcher Moon against Sun - nature versus nurture.

Summertime in Modesto

By Manuel Alonzo Jr.

can kill you, especially if you sleep in discarded cardboard dumped on the street. A place where the sweltering heat bakes your skin each day, morphing your body into a burning furnace of sweat and decay. Your spirit slowly crumbles, worn down by the scorching sun, until it fades away completely, leaving you lost and undone.

There’s no mercy, no shade, nor real government aid, just a town that smolders as its people burn away. The sky is unforgiving, showing no compassion at all, for the ones left to fight—struggling to rise or fall. Even the moonlit nights offer no hope or reprieve, just stifling air, thick with smog, that won’t let you breathe, it CHOKES you, violently forcing lungs to cough and heave.

However, some escape the fiery sunlight by retreating inside, where cool homes offer comfort, and chilled drinks reside, or they hop in their cars with AC cranked at level five, sipping ice water while driving by others who have no place to hide, glaring with shame, a false sense of pride.

“Wouldn’t it be easier to just get a job?” they ponder aloud, no empathy or sympathy, no love for others allowed.

In Modesto, the summer sun shows no grace, for those without shelter, without a safe place. A town divided by circumstance and fate, where hope for the homeless withers, swallowed by senseless hate.

Metropolis Blues

By Nuala McEvoy

Medium: Acrylics and marker pens on canvas

Notes on the Fog

By Schuyler Becker

Broken limbs and remembered sins reach out into the white dawn and I laugh askew as a chill creeps along these bones like a morning fog

I would rather make pain my lover than live this odyssey in black and white some monochrome epic

For a silhouette at first light against a sky blank and prosaic looks more like a monument to the loneliest of eyes

Spirits from chapters burned drop leaves like lost letters spurned let the wind carry their voices away from dreams too Freudian to comprehend or replay and it is a dream to see a place this way A book of metaphors and missed goodbyes made right until you leave the dismal street

For glaring lights upon the harbor bring clarity to the mirror and steps too loud for a quietened soul reel the bacchanal ashore The dampened pavers extol a drunkenness on desertion and holiday exile

And They Lived Happily Ever After*

By Nancy Haskett

Instead of a mosque or family home in Gaza City, they married in a tent in Rafah, one bride and groom among a million displaced persons.

Instead of a multitude of friends and family, a handful of relatives escorted them through dirt and sand, around makeshift shelters, tethered goats, barefoot children, mud stoves.

Instead of a shirt and tie, the groom wore jeans and a hooded jacket, the zipper halfway down revealing a black T-shirt beneath. But the bride wore a veil and white dress, embroidered with crimson flowers and vines that formed red bands around her arms and waist, long stripes down the front and back.

Instead of a wedding feast, snacks in plastic packaging were provided, along with music from a portable player, rather than live instrumentation. But there was clapping and celebration, even as people around them hung laundry and looked for food, and a small group of children joined hands and danced in the sunset, silhouetted against the border fence topped with barbed wire. *Inspired by the story “Gaza couple marry in tent city by barbed wire border fence” on January 19, 2024

Mirth

By Maudie Bryant

Medium: Fabric mâché and acrylic on canvas

un perro ha muerto (or: ceci n’est pas pablo neruda)

By Brennan Saur

an antidote to rote anhedonia:

the final days of the dying dog are filled with a scented optimism. they have to be, the way we perfume to cover up her waning scents.

we wrap her in the blanket i wore as a child, on cold and sleepless nights before she was there to comfort me, and lick away the fear. this is the last place she will ever rest –a better prison than she ever knew.

i hope that when my time comes, too, you’ll scratch under my pus-marked ears and feed me scraps from your table: little pieces of meat; little hunks of cheese; i’m grateful for the gifts, and for the years.

i’m not sure i believe in ironic detachment like i used to.

The Experience

By Jordan Jones

Medium: Acrylic paint and iridescent tape on canvas

Opalescent Obfuscation

By A.J.M. Aldrian

Do you dare to want me like a willow tree bending towards the water? dreams of you kept me awake I rather wish the whole world away... and wait

Wait for you, Liebe Schatz, komm heir mit mir

Catch me in the sideways light late in the night

If I were to lay in your lap and see you in better days apart from darkness...

I will tell you all my secrets and measure your perfection against the refraction of the stars

You are like my skin shredded that I can’t hold onto Pulled off from me like old ink of my tattoos could I be something refreshingly new for you

poured me raw and sour sweet into a cold glass

Let me wet your lips and taste like forgotten reminiscence...

Danced in the darkness, I will take you below this curtain of velvet evening and say; Dusty, damn how you dangled me before this dug out ditch of the devoured. In this late hour, shower me in light’s sweet absence

Opalescent obfuscation, plug and pepper me alone through my foundation... My damsel, my silent nation, my heartbeat was only ever yours.

Think of me in ones, twos threes and on all fours, rather you pick me up and pocket me like a broken seashell on the shore. Keep me instead, and take this little piece of me the Gods call my heart And maybe some say we’d burn in hell babe with one last secret on my lips then, let me savor each and every lick of your tempestuous flame.

Open Season

By Cyrus Gudino

Veronica Rosemary

Dear Aiden

Today in my grief counseling group session, we were all encouraged to start documenting things we want to say to our lost husbands. And yes, Dr. Ellise makes us say “lost husbands” instead of “dead husbands.” There’s a good reason too, but I’d argue there’s no point in saying “lost” because it isn’t like any of these people misplaced their husbands. Though, one of them is a woman named Laurel who, for every session, wears this shirt that says “the cutie belongs to me”, and apparently her husband had a matching shirt that has the word “cutie” on it. They wore those shirts on their monthly, scheduled grocery store visits, and if he wandered off, the shirts would adorably come into play. So, for her and only her, she technically lost her husband. The only morbid add-on to the now sad tradition is that he’s really gone.

But can you imagine scheduling your grocery store visits? I much prefer the time we both came home from work to an empty fridge instead. I remember you cut me off mid-fight, and yelled, “Let’s just go!” And I followed you, of course, fuming like hell, until you took us to the actual store.

Snack cakes, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and potato chips for dinner. We ate like elementary schoolers. My only regret from that night was that I didn’t trade my Fruit Snacks for your Capri-Sun.

Anyways, I schedule my grocery store visits now. If I don’t make a reminder, I don’t remember to go. I went so long without leaving the house, I was down to mustard, ranch, and bag of stale, shredded lettuce—more red and rusty than green and crispy. You were right about what would happen if I took that remote job—I’d never go outside again. I have about a billion alarms, and you’d tease me over every single one, but sometimes you need an alarm to remind yourself to drink water, okay? Besides, if I don’t remind myself of simple tasks, then your brother will.

Actually, he’ll nag me regardless.

He shows up weekly now. I can’t get rid of him. Ever since he caught me in the middle of my lettuce dinner, he decided I was his new pet project. He treats me like I am a feral cat he needs to regularly leave a bowl of food out for. I swear, I wake up to vacuuming sometimes, and it’s horrible because I’ll forget about everything, run downstairs, and then it’s just your brother cleaning non-existent crumbs from the living room carpet. And you were right about his judge-y face. His scowl wordlessly cuts you down. I tell him to mind his business, and he replies, “Learn how to take care of yourself.” I’m thinking of calling Liana so she can come over and scold him since nothing compares to your mom giving him a stern talking to.

Also, what’s up with the whole “learn how to take care of yourself” thing? What does that even mean? He acts like it’s a class I can take or a video tutorial I can watch on YouTube. He doesn’t even know what living with someone is like and how you can’t just go from taking care of everything that matters in your whole world to suddenly being alone in it.

I just need more time.

I keep telling him that. I tell Mom and Dad, my friends, Dr. Ellise, the other women and men in the group. They all look at me with the same pitiful look—the look given to a child who says things like “I want to fly up to the moon,” and everyone is thinking “you can’t have that dream. It’s impossible.”

But I don’t think I am asking for too much. I will never be well enough for anyone if they don’t give me the time to figure all of this out.

Honestly, I just need some time with you. Just so we can figure this out. If you could just…

Come back to me for a few moments, help me navigate this next part.

I have overcome some of my greatest fears—falling in love and risking heartbreak, going after my dream job and risking rejection, going sky-diving and risking paralysis (still mad you talked me into that one). It was much easier to be brave when you were here, but since I never had to put on my brave front around you, I will tell you the truth and admit that my fears—even the top ten greatest of all time ones—cannot ever compare to the one that came true. And it feels like there is no overcoming this. So, if you or anyone else ever expect me to figure out this next part, then you need to give me some time— time alone with you, please.

You were always good at making decisions too, so if you could find a way to lead me, I’d really appreciate it. Like, show me how to take up all the space on the bed, and tell me what shows to watch—you used to find the best ones. And new music too! I need your newest curated playlist so I know what to listen to. I could use some help figuring out what to eat every night too. Do you remember the takeout menu drawer? I used to love all our options, but now I wish we didn’t collect so many. Sometimes I just go hungry waiting for you to come home for dinner so we can figure out what to eat together. I definitely need guidance there. And could you tell me what to say to your family? You know I am bad at conversation, and I am afraid I am going to embarrass myself when the holidays come around. I am especially afraid of seeing your mean pre-teen nieces again. I don’t know what’s trending, Aiden, I am getting old- and I need you to tell me how to do that part too. How to age, grow, keep going.

We had plans, do you remember? Could you remind me?

Could you tell me all your crazy, insane dreams every morning too? Burn toast at breakfast so the whole kitchen can smell like the inside of an incinerator? Clap and cheer when you pass the bathroom during my in-shower concerts? Take my hand when we are crossing the street? Look at me when you find something funny to see if I will laugh too? Whisper “I love you” before turning off the lights?

Dr. Ellise says that saying “lost husband” is honest because we did lose something—we lost our person to receive love from and give love to, and now all we can feel is that absence. So, we need to make ourselves available and keep those we care for close during this time because our bodies, minds, souls, and especially our hearts, need to readjust. It’s as if our starved hearts just need new diets.

But my heart’s not hungry; it’s broken. I feel like I can hear the pieces rattling around in my chest every time I take a breath. And I don’t always feel like I lost you. I feel like I lost me.

You, to me, are everywhere. In the clothes in our closet. In the old receipts in your bedside table. Even in the Ikea furniture you terribly assembled. I find you easily, even though you’re not here. But I can’t seem to find myself, like I’m some misplaced object. I go to the grocery store, hoping someone has seen the person wearing my matching shirt so they can help lead me back to you—to who I belong to.

But I guess I’m not taking the right lessons away from my grief counseling group sessions if I start calling myself “lost”, huh?

So, schedules and alarms, learning how to take care of myself, facing my fears, growing old...I’ll figure it out eventually. I know I will. You know I will.

For now, this should be a step in the right direction—writing this letter to you. Documenting things I want to say to you, right? So, I want to let you know, as if I haven’t said enough, that I tried the lasagna recipe, and you were right—garlic bread can be a main dish. Also, I am thinking of getting a cat—one of the feral rescue ones that your brother makes me feel like so it will be two against one. And lastly, I miss you.

I just really, terribly miss you.

But you had to go. I hope you know I understand that. I wish you had more time, but I get it, I’m trying to—I hope you can see that. And I hope you’re not alone, wherever you are—but if you do get lonely, just come find me.

You were the only one who ever could, after all.

Love, Val

TSUNAMI, LAUPĀHOEHOE, 1 APRIL 1946

By Mantz Yorke

1: Destruction

Excitement: the village school about to open, but the children are chasing the sea as it retreats a long way from the rocky shore, exposing sand and leaving fish flapping in pools.

But the sea is teasing them, coming back and retreating, the delighted children squealing, following the tideline as it flows and ebbs.

As if tiring of the game, the sea becomes calm, but it’s pretending: it is gathering itself for the big one – not a Hokusai great breaker, but a long, relentless surge set in motion by a huge earthquake half an ocean away.

Playfulness turns into brutality: the surge this time keeps on coming, coming, coming, smashing the school and the teachers’ houses against the bluff. The children who know too late they should have fled are tumbled, screaming, drowned in the seething violence of the sea.

2: Survival

You were lucky the sea’s swirl swept you close to floating wood –perhaps a bit of clapboard from the wreckage of the school or the teachers’ residences, but enough to make a raft for you and the two exhausted teens you were able to haul aboard.

A spotter plane saw you on the raft and dropped a yellow inflatable while the current carried you north-west

as the sun declined. Lucky again: in the dawn light forty miles up the coast, not far from Big Island’s northern tip, a girl on the cliff spotted the yellow and got three swimmers to bring you in.

You might have made it to Maui, nearly a hundred miles away. If not, you’d have had little chance of rescue: the inflatable would have been left drifting across the vastness of the Pacific, perhaps to fetch up on a Russian shore as nothing but a garish piece of flotsam swilling in the shallows, nobody on board.

By Nancy Haskett

In Tuolumne Meadows, somewhere along the seven and a half miles of the Mono Pass trail, my husband lost a baseball cap with a Modesto city logo he designed, and just a day later somewhere in Camp Curry cabin 504, I lost a pair of navy blue, lightweight leggings, probably mixed up in the slippery navy blue blanket placed at the foot of each bed, and this got me to thinking about the movie Defending Your Life, where you die, go to some kind of afterlife, and are given a box which contains everything you have lost during your years on earth.

My box would contain those leggings, along with the sunglasses I left in Knights Ferry, a few random keys, several earrings, a wallet stolen out of my car, that pair of turquoise, beaded moccasins that I left under the motel bed in New Mexico when I was nine years old, and countless other things I have long forgotten.

What would not appear in the box would be my patience and temper, directions, appetite, sense of smell, faith in humanity, seat, and virginity, all lost at one time or another.

By Mark Ifanson

Medium: Photography

Milagra*

By Diana Woodcock

The landscape: redrock, northern Arizona. The heartbreak: one twenty-year-old female California condor succumbing to avian influenza just after she laid her one egg in a cliffside cave.

And although her mate was trying his best to tend the nest, chances were slim he’d be able— without a mate sharing the task— to hatch the egg. So in order to save the chick, researchers made

the difficult decision to bring it into captivity—its species still critically endangered. At first, hope was slim. But then the vet tech candled the egg, illuminating the contents in hopes of signs of life.

And she witnessed the embryo move. So with round-the-clock attention— intervention by the Liberty Wildlife team dedicating themselves to rotating the egg four times a day and monitoring its development, it finally hatched.

When it passed the test, free of avian flu, she was named Milagra, miracle in Spanish, and was flown to a breeding facility in Boise where foster parents took her under their wing, and if everything goes well, she’ll one day return—

tagged and numbered—to her flock, to the desert landscape of red rock, Arizona, the last descendent of her mother, abiding hope for the future of her ancient, resilient species.

*Inspired by “Witness the Inspiring Release of Milagra, the Condor Rescued as an Egg After Bird Flu Killed Her Mother” Fall 2023

The Unmaking of The Unlucky One Doesn’t Accurately Describe It, Unfortunately

By Andres Jimenez

Medium: Archival ink from Micron pens on paper

Instrumental

By Deborah Lloyd

We sit in another non-descript hotel lobby, in yet another forgettable town. Eric gulps his beer; I stare into my coffee. In-between us EJ fidgets, grasping onto his tumbler with both hands. Innocuous elevator music drones in the background. A few other guests are dotted about, shabby like their surroundings. EJ furtively approaches the piano. My little lad, with all his white, mad hair! His fingers elongate as he touches the keys, an initial chink and plink, then rich melodies fly, hit the ceiling, and resonate around the lobby. Startled staff look up as the air is filled with round sound.

His young face has an ancient expression. I have lived and breathed his music. I know his repertoire. I wait for the slightest falter, always just here, and then, on he plays. Eyes closed in his own world of notes, The sing song rhythm, and complexity of sound transforms this space. I am no longer in another hotel, one of a chain, muted colour schemes and pretend bookshelves.

Sunshine tumbles through the sky light casting fairy dust. The rich melody builds wave upon wave. EJ, my magician, turning my stone heart back to blood and muscle. Eric gives out a snort, an unpleasant smile creeps across his face.

“Ah, that’s my boy,” he congratulates himself. The faint tang of caffeine rouses me.

“OUR boy, don’t you mean?”

EJ has grown to be part of the instrument. Autumnal notes hover on the air. How is it that my baby knows all of this? His melody echoes time and space beyond his years.

Sudden silence shatters as he stands up. His footsteps pad rhythmically away. I gasp, he reaches the revolving door. I see his mass of curls and then he is gone. So much braver than me, he has escaped.

Medium: Faber-Castell graphite pencil on toned sketch paper Good

By Gabrielle Bourang

To the Stranger Who Walked Slowly

By Nancy Haskett

I don’t know you, I will probably never see you again, I’m not sure I would even recognize you, but I just wanted you to know that I am grateful for your presence today, as I sat in my car at the four-way stop sign, watched you shuffle slowly down the sidewalk toward our house, waited for you to pass our driveway before I continued on, as you moved so painfully slowly, and I’m sure I probably spoke out loud, Come on! Any time! Let’s go! so focused on you that I never saw the white car blow through the stop sign until it passed in front of me going at least forty miles an hour, right through the intersection, where I would have been if I weren’t waiting for you to save my life.

Guardian Angel

By Christopher Buckley

I still remember Sister Caritas, first day, 3rd grade, 1956 assuring us that we each had one, a guardian angel, who stood duty, invisibly right behind us in all places, on all occasions, with a score card marking whether we resisted or yielded to temptation—what little was available back then—there would be an accounting one day. . . .

But I think mine ducked out right after those early days, into the hills, sun-struck as oat straw or thistle stalks, humming something part wind, part mountain creek . . . or climbed a boxcar, unnoticed against the white lettering on the side, found work in the strawberry fields of Guadalupe or as a night clerk in a rooming house in Saticoy. . . .

Then 40 years or so down the road, my heart’s doing double-takes—the bus driver with my retreating hairline, the car mechanic with my beard above our denim shirts, a little wound of ink or motor oil leaking from his breast pocket, worrying me—a silver pool of antifreeze at his feet, which, in one world or another, could indicate an accident, a fall from grace? I recognize Flying Dutchman tobacco on the air and remember tossing my pipes out years ago to avoid one of many dark fates we were foretold. He passes a rag the color of old fire over a brake drum until it takes on a beatific gleam, then taps embers from his pipe before going back about the earth’s machines and rust, humming “My Blue Heaven.” He’s content, engaged with life’s broken nuts and bolts—a life, given my miserable performances in math and science, that could easily have been mine, scholar of clouds and leaves I have become. And while we’re both about equally light in the wallet, one of us knows the scale and dynamics of wind and the other his cheerless part in gravity. What else is there to think of at this late date—the electricity of the universe delivered in waves or packets to every unknowing thing, to the tips of my fingers, a blank hum around my skin extending itself like breath, a second part of some temporary shining?

Maybe that’s why I regularly find myself brooding along side streets and alleys where I once lived happily enough, where I am now a little snakebit as I stare into the second-hand bookstore, the dulled windows of Old Doc’s Liquors or the Chicken Pie Shop for faces I might know despite the dingy bones of the spirit showing through?

I take a breather, lean against an ash or elm, and am looking into a backyard as he comes out of the screen door . . . of course . . . he never left Fresno—its flat linen light and freight yards, its seraphic miles of almonds and plums, crepe myrtle and fig, the Basque restaurant with seven-course sheep-herder meals for not much more than a prayer. He never filled out the forms for promotion, for a merit increase—one step up the ladder, ½ a step back, a momentary handhold on the greasy pole. He never moved from the bottom of Arthur Street, the iffy end of the Tower District with its greasy cafés and

appliance shops. It’s the same slat board house on blocks, the yellow faded to the color of fog, a TV antenna still spreading its thin bones against the sky, pulling in 3 blurry channels. He’s a stone’s throw from the tracks, just across from the pitiful zoo where peacocks calling over the redwoods like abandoned souls never bother him a bit. He tends his runner beans, his chilies . . . slices one, tests it on his tongue in hope of speaking with the birds, asking them to pardon the fruiting mulberry, the three slender nectarines on the left, the jays eating everything under the sun as the high industries of the world seem to pass this place by. . . .

His other shoes slouch on the porch, those old gold Nikes with waffle tread and slim blue wings stitched on the sides . . . most days at 4:30 he used to slip them on and fly up Palm then back down to Olive, to Piemonte’s, where he still gets away with the mortadella and provolone, bottles of thick Italian Carigane—he’s not worrying himself to death about his health.

He’s practical, and takes easily to his tasks, tears a few yellowed pages out of an old Latin text to start a yard fire in the back for the brown tomato leaves and grocery sack of weeds. He pushes up his sleeves, disappears for a few minutes with his paper-white skin into the plumes of smoke, only to reappear at the picnic table with a water glass full of red wine—minor miracle of the suburbs—waving a long finger toward the fire as if conducting the flames. And he can just about sing, follows along with Pavarotti to O Sole Mio on his cassette player, a few starlings on the wires helping him out, so he has not been without friends or company, complexity or art, or sense, as he switches over to a little whistling as the melody rises above his range.

He’s happy for a Saturday, the grey peace of early fall, glad for this flat half-acre picked up before everyone discovered real estate and Airbnbs. Alone in the garden, life looks trouble-free . . . he bends a knee, confiding to the irises, their white and topaz wings, but, as stands back up too quickly, and a lightness comes over me, sweeps through my arms, clouds ascending in my head. . . . I look closer, compare our bear-like slump, our short legs. He looks over, must have known I was here all along. His eyes shine like the sky, squint toward the far tops of the trees. Then he’s smiling, a wide smile as if I were a relative gone 20 years as far as New Jersey or East Jesus and just back in town. Embarrassed, I turn and start walking down the street, and leaning on his rake he waves an arm, then lets the rake drop, waving both arms wildly over his head, jumps up once or twice calling out as I turn the corner and disappear. . . .

Animal Husbandry

By Cyrus Gudino

Medium: Acrylic on gesso board

All day long I beg them to share—the two Ruby-throats dueling mid-air among the blossoms and sugar water on my deck.

How can I ever expect world peace if these two beauties refuse to share? How can I convince them there’s always more where it all comes from— the sun calling forth more nectar, me at the ready to make more sugar water. And always those sapwells drilled into tree trunks by Yellow-bellied sapsuckers. I want to say bon appetit to these two tiny hummers who spend summers

with me. But they need a lesson first in sharing. Look at them glaring at each other as they hover in the air over my deck.

Sparing with those black needle-like bills looks quite dangerous—both of them dead serious about defending their territory. Same old sad story. How can I ever expect world peace when these two can’t reach an agreement?

By Diana Woodcock

Staff Favorites

Spring 2025

Art

Intervals

Ilyssa Chavez

Poetry

Night Song

Suchita Senthil Kumar

Fiction

Dear Aiden

Veronica Rosemary

Nonfiction

Guardian Angel

Christopher Buckley

Summer 2024

Nonfiction

Here I am carried, here I descend

Hannah Levy

Fiction

I’ll Be Waiting for You Here

Mark Ifanson

Poetry

TSUNAMI, LAUPĀHOEHOE, 1 APRIL 1946

Mantz Yorke

Acknowledgments

Launching a Penumbra edition is a team effort, and it would not have been possible without the help of many people.

Our gratitude first goes to the Department of English for being the foundation from which Penumbra has grown. Thank you to Dr. John Wittman, the department chair, for his invaluable guidance and support of the journal and Dr. Tony Perrello, our faculty advisor, for promoting innovation and a strong work ethic that allowed us to bring the journal to life.

This publication would not have been possible without the hard work, guidance, and artistic vision of Martina Bekasha, Allison Westlund, and Nix Carbone-Deep Penumbra’s co-editors-in-chief.

We would also like to thank our Reagan Oliveira, our Reviews Editor, for continual support throughout the creation of this journal.

We are also grateful to Stan Prints, Kory Twaddle, and the rest of the University Art Gallery team for their exemplary work and support.

Finally, we extend our heartfelt appreciation to Dean of Humanities Dr. James Tuedio, Provost Dr. Richard Ogle, President Dr. Britt Rios-Ellis, and those not mentioned for their continuous support throughout this process: thank you for helping make Penumbra possible.

Cover Art: “Last Burn” by Jordan Jones All rights revert to the contributors.

Penumbra is indexed in the Humanities International Index. Content © 2025

Penumbra Department of English

California State University, Stanislaus One University Circle Turlock, CA 95382

Penumbra@csustan.edu

Peumbraonline.com

ISBN: 979-8-3507-4701-0