February 2019






        

    
Highway Lullaby

  

        
  
  

    
Poetry
By: Hunter Towne
 


Silence makes a sound

	don’t you think?

	Sometimes I can’t sleep

	because the silence is so loud.


There is something about the nothing,

	the absolute emptiness of a place

	like walking through a forest on a snowy night.


Silence scares me.


I grew up in town

	close to the highway

	and the constant hum of tires on tar

	has sung me to sleep the past 15 years.


Sometimes we go to a farm

	in New Hampshire.

	It’s beautiful

	and I treasure my time there.

	But I have a hard time sleeping.


It is just

	so

	so

	so

	quiet,

	yet, so

	so

	so

	loud.


Silence has a sound

	don’t you think?


Hunter Towne is 15 years old; she lives in Freeport, Maine.


  

  
  

          
    
      


  

  

    





        

    
The Red and White Campbell's Beef Noodle Soup Can

  

        
  
  

    
Poetry
By: Andrew Li
The red and white Campbell’s Beef Noodle Soup can, 


created by heavy, hurting, hands, in a faded factory, 


sits, idly. 


 


It has the same mellow, metallic, touch as others of its kind.


It has the same lackluster label as others of its kind.


 


It has the 


same


soggy


soup


as others of its kind.


 


The price, nineteen cents, is printed boldly on the lid,


and the can is shipped off to a shop in Manhattan,


where a man comes everyday to buy it. 


The man, Andy is his name,


whips out two dimes, grabs the can, 


and tells the storekeeper to keep the change. 


 


He returns to his easel in his studio 


and opens the can 


and takes in the boring bland aroma of the soup


and he consumes it like his mouth is a black hole 


devouring the universe of beef, noodles, and soggy soup. 


 


Yet it doesn’t deter him from buying another,


and another,


until twenty years have gone by. 


 


Andrew Li, 18, Singapore