Cosumnes River Journal
Fall 2025
Vol. 16, No. 2
- Copy Paste by Olivia Burdon
- K Through College by Olivia Burdon
- Skips by Olivia Burdon
- What Lurks in the Kitchen Cabinet by Janna Eerkens
- Georgia & Skull in the Womb-Tomb by Kay Ferrier
- No Touching the Art by Kay Ferrier
- Noble Warrior by Kay Ferrier
- Five Jobs I Quit by Claudya Geister-Padilla
- Dateline by Jordan Hanson
- Grief in a Girl by Jordan Hanson
- Regret Blossomed from Happiness by Justin Imai
- Counting by Raj Kaur
- Death Walking by Raj Kaur
- Failures in Patience by Raj Kaur
- Prize by Raj Kaur
- June by Raj Kaur
- As I Work at Poetry by Maheen S. Khan
- Five Terms by Maheen S. Khan
- The Demise of the Commonwealth by Maheen S. Khan
- Love is a Drug by Meggan Saragoza
- The Love of a Brother by Meggan Saragoza
Copy Paste
Dougie’s life had become a series of copies and pastes. Each day was like the next, and that day was like the one before. He stared at the same walls and saw the same people. He could describe the piece of sky above him during yard time like it was tattooed on the backs of his eyelids.
K Through College
Neil Armstrong Elementary
I, one of two Black kids at my new school, followed two as he pointed out the lunchroom and nurse’s office. He motioned towards the principal’s office, where the two of us couldn’t be sent, and walked me to the library, where we would be expected.
Skips
I am not naïve enough to think
our connection was
but it was rare
What Lurks in the Kitchen Cabinet?
Angelica’s landlord had sent her a message the day prior—simple, to the point: I’ll be doing an inspection on the 24th of April at 2 p.m. Angelica had panicked just the smallest, tiniest amount, which was to say, she had completely freaked out. See, Angelica had been a perfectionist and a goody-two-shoes her entire life.
Georgia & Skull in the Womb Tomb
After It Was a Man and a Pot, by Georgia O’Keeffe, 1942
What made you ensconce a human skull
in a big, dark, old terracotta pot?
The skull of yellow gold is hiding
in a large vessel with a window out.
The sutured orb is facing backwards.
The two spheres are full of contrast.
No Touching the Art
After Boston Cremes, by Wayne Thiebaud, 1962
The painting calls the viewer in with magnetic force.
Three rows of fifteen pieces of Boston Creme Pie,
the three in front are in full magnificent view.
It’s a fantasy bakery optical, tempting…touchable.
God bless Thiebaud for his bold alluring treats.
Noble Warrior
After Red Indian #2 (Bowman), by Yoran Wolberger, Israel, 1963
A childhood memory from a set of cowboys and Indians
showed up at the museum, and I talked with him.
You are a pop art Indian in a warrior’s pose,
a larger-than-life sculpture in fiberglass and resin.
A large-scale toy reproduction of a dime store figure.
Five Jobs I Quit
1. I once was a hostess at a restaurant. The servers and bartenders were mostly mean with some exceptions. It felt like high school politics with cliques and rude girls who talk about you and others. The place was small and disorganized. People never tip the hostess, and I don’t blame them. I hated it there, so I quit.
Date Line
“And that’s exactly why I feel like Tyler Durden.”
Just when I thought my lousy attempt at a blind date had hit rock bottom, he dropped a Fight Club reference. First of all, you famously don’t talk about Fight Club. Second of all, I famously do not care. But there he went, rambling on, telling me all about his struggles as a man. I was shocked he couldn’t detect discomfort. To any onlooking eye, you’d easily be able to tell I was scanning the room for emergency exits. And truly, this was an emergency that I needed to exit.
Grief in a Girl
The sign reads “Reward”
for a girl with no face—
no name, no age,
only a time of escape.
Regret Blossomed from Happiness
1. I was among her many Instagram followers when we first met. She wore these thin framed glasses that complemented her black wolf cut perfectly and had an incredible mind for dressing up. I was infatuated with her. At some point, she’d change her profile picture to a drawing of a woman who was a complete spitting image of her, almost as if her whole existence was inspired by this very woman.
Counting
This body’s an education
in subtraction, zero circling empty
like a stomach
or a grave.
Death Walking
“This looks like the Unabomber’s cabin,” said Sukhi as their car rolled along the increasingly narrow mountain road toward the retreat. Her head was pressed against the passenger window, bobbing up and down as the wheels threaded through rocky forest ground. Sukhi was exaggerating, she knew, but the knotting of her stomach was all too real. Ahead of them was a discouragingly small, brown shack with a tin roof.
Failures in Patience
1. My ten-year-old eyebrows were the focus of my attention. Peering through the water stains of our old bathroom mirror, I ran a small finger over their dark, fluffy contours. They curled into spirals at the arches, just like my dad’s. I’d already made up my mind that they’d have to go. Beauty was the unspoken prologue to every love story. These were getting in the way of the one I wanted to tell. So it was perhaps fate, the miffed hands of God, that caused me to botch them. It was a misunderstanding in technique, first of all. No cream, no water. Then, a few overzealous swipes here and there. This was before I’d learn the meticulous toil of female shapeshifting. I cried and cried. I rubbed my tears into the reddening flesh, as if they were magic. They would grow back, of course.
Prize
After Marina Abramović’s Rest Energy, 1980
The scene is one you already know well by now. Lovers, pre-tragedy. Both gripping the hurt between them tightly. Is it necessarily only one’s fault when the arrow is unleashed? It takes two for this trick to work. Nothing but each other holding each other in place. Their legs sprout like roots from the same old, gnarled tree. Perhaps they could stay like this forever, for a hundred years at least, nothing but rot taking them down. They could be a living thing.
June
Work commute blues me like a bruise–
car-trapped and miserable–but then
sun bleaches the blackest sky and
we’re all blue and I remember
I am I am I am, and I
can forget worry, sorrow, and
sometimes my dead friends but never
birthdays.
As I Work at Poetry
Trying to poem write
A task so daunting
At my desk so blue
Sitting alone in the lobby
Five Terms
We were in the female locker room getting ready for gym class when the official announcement was made over the PA system. The locker room was toasty, a welcome hug from the chill of the autumn air outside, when cheers erupted throughout the room. Our bright smiles lit up the space. History had just been made, and we were alive to witness it. A sense of unity and excitement was palpable. There was a group of girls hugging and swaying from side to side, others began singing and dancing in between the stalls of lockers. The year was 2008.
The Demise of the Commonwealth
On the occasion of Independence Day
Men women and children
of the nation stripped
of guaranteed freedoms
afforded by revolutionaries former.
The plight of insurgents
erased slowly from memory.
Love is a Drug
With help from “Alone with you in the Ether”
You know drugs, don’t you?
That is love, measured and paced.
The too-hasty sprint of your pulse,
the dissolve on your tongue,
the burn through the empty cavity of your chest.
Your little reveries and twisted dreams—
It can be painted like Sunday mornings in the sun.
The Love of a Brother
Needles and pills bury your dead,
the rhythm of heart, too fast to none.
Your soul is lifted; a body goes still.
A crack in my heart, a sorrow too deep,
I can’t move on; I can hardly breathe.
A woman scorned, a brother gone.
The Cosumnes River Journal is a magazine of literature and art.
We are not accepting unsolicited submissions at this time.
We hope you enjoyed these words.
Editorial Team: Rose Spisak and Heather Hutcheson
Cosumnes River Journal 