We’ve come down now off the elation of our last post, and so we figured we’d introduce ourselves. Circus is Amherst’s literary magazine; we publish a neat little volume of student art and literature twice a year. As always, you can contact us–to send us your work, to get involved with the magazine–at circus(AT)amherst.edu

We at Circus must say that we are tickled pink that we finally have a face on the internet (to the internet?)–and we’ll hopefully make up for lost time. In the next few months we’re going to be showing much of our content online so that those of you that lost your copy of Circus (or never got a copy, or spilled food on your copy in Val) won’t have to be so glum.

We’ll leave you for now with a preview from our upcoming edition:

To Touch Her
by Neal Allar

It takes a sun-leathered neck to feel her fatigue,
a wind-burnt face to meet her kiss,
cracked lips and a dry tongue to return it,
and ashen eyes to see hers gleam.

It takes fingering your own lacerated knee
to know the violence of her past,
broken ribs to feel her breasts
against your body as she breathes.

But most of all, it takes letting her sleep,
her hair cool and fine along your cheek,
her downy ass against your thigh,

a mild touch, to feel her youthful heat,
to smell the callow musk about her ears,
to hear her soft-sighed lullaby.