JOHN A. NIEVES—"NOTE FROM APPARENT MAGNITUDE TO LUMINOSITY" (Issue 25)

Sugar House Review · John A. Nieves' "Note from Apparent Magnitude to Luminosity"

NOTE FROM APPARENT MAGNITUDE TO LUMINOSITY

Take a second to disregard the yawning pupils 

of the telescope-tethered. I know you’ve been busy 

with energy, energy, energy—how much something 

puts out, how to measure it. I want for a second to ask: 

what does all that output matter if everyone else is 

too far away to sample the shine? Look, I remember 

that summer I woke up one day and you had 

inexplicably dimmed 70.25%. It wasn’t just 

observable as less shedding of charged particles, 

I could see myself through you in the mirror. When I called 

for breakfast, you walked through the couch. The closer you 

got to me, the clearer you became—I could again see the lines 

of your face as ghost currents, as the worry of week-late 

rent. But as you backed away, you were just the AC wisping 

the sediment of the room, asking the shadows if shadow 

were a function of brightness or the gulf between light 

and what eats it. After a few days you brightened again. It 

probably had to do with a series of late-night phone calls 

or a letter you got you pressed close to your chest. Not this letter, 

not that time, like brightness couldn’t be relative, but I would have 

recognized my own handwriting. Anyway, with your normal 

gleam restored you drifted out the door, down the highway, 

not nearly as bright as the shadow you had just been, not nearly 

anything I could measure without interval, without the wide 

gap between observation and location, the intimate comparison 

of what one throws off and what another can catch.

ABOUT THE POET 

John A. Nieves is a hardcore Sugar House fan. He has poems forthcoming or 

recently published in journals such as: North American Review, Copper Nickel, 

32 Poems, Harvard Review, and Massachusetts Review. He won the Indiana 

Review Poetry Contest and his first book, Curio, won the Elixir Press Annual 

Poetry Award Judge’s Prize. He is associate professor of English at Salisbury 

University and an editor of The Shore Poetry. He received his MA from 

University of South Florida and his PhD from the University of Missouri.

ABOUT SUGAR HOUSE REVIEW 

We loved reading the work that we’ve published (clearly), and we want an 

opportunity to better hear our contributors. We're featuring audio recordings of 

poems from our pages, read by the poet. This an open invitation to all contributors 

from any of our issues, we were delighted to print your work, now we’re eager to 

hear it.

ACE BOGGESS—"GRATITUDE LIST #3" (Issue 25)

Sugar House Review · Ace Boggess' "Gratitude List #3"

GRATITUDE LIST #3

Forgive me when I praise my wealth 

of misadventure: 

how the knife pressed against me scarred my thumb 

& fingers, 

never took my throat; 

how the knife that pierced my lower back 

spared an artery by an inch of fat; 

how the knife I wielded like a child’s plastic sword 

found an arm & thigh but nothing 

to haunt me past this writing-down; 

how the knife I threw stuck only in a door; 

how the pistol cocked behind me somewhere in shadow 

never discharged 

while cash & goods were exchanged; 

how the larger knife held at my neck 

turned out to be a test 

by a desperate man who wanted my desperation; 

how the officer’s boot grinding my skull 

into a blood-soaked pharmacy floor 

raised up before a bone could fracture; 

how the fists of other prisoners found my face 

just enough to land a message; 

how I survived the way I lived; 

how knowing I survived 

somehow doesn’t make me a survivor; 

how the knife tonight cut meat— 

so dull, I thought, so simple & pleasingly dull.

ABOUT THE POET 

Ace Boggess is author of six books of poetry, including Escape Envy (Brick Road 

Poetry Press, 2021), I Have Lost the Art of Dreaming It So, and The Prisoners. His 

writing has appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review, Notre Dame Review, 

Harvard Review, Mid-American Review, and other journals. An ex-con, he lives in 

Charleston, WV, where he writes and tries to stay out of trouble.

ABOUT SUGAR HOUSE REVIEW 

We loved reading the work that we’ve published (clearly), and we want an 

opportunity to better hear our contributors. We're featuring audio recordings of 

poems from our pages, read by the poet. This an open invitation to all contributors 

from any of our issues, we were delighted to print your work, now we’re eager to 

hear it.

NORA HIKARI—"FRAGMENTS II" (Issue 25)

Sugar House Review · Nora Hikari's "Fragments II"

FRAGMENTS II

You could bind the canon in skin, or parchment. 

But the truth was on pottery shards. The inconsequential. 

        We are most honest when unprepared. Struck truthful 

        in a moment of terror, without pen or paper. Write faster. 

Terror is always forthcoming. Like pressure on a specific point, 

which trickles outwards to reveal our honest faults. Splinter here. 

        My people invent kintsugi. Less a technique and more a faith. 

        Faith: that form erupts magnificent from the broken thing. Scar paint. 

We are helpless in the face of confession. In her upturned chin, 

begging, "Admit. Admit you need me. Admit you need love." I split. 

        In the way the broken vessel is helpless to pour. No matter 

        how much it tries to hold itself to a standard of function. Spill out. 

Gather up your dreams. Gather up the things you have named "dreams," 

which are just the chipped plates of your dropped stars. Don't cry. 

        Did you know tears are sieved blood? Spit, too. We are just 

        one leaky vessel trying to keep everything in. Keep trying.

ABOUT THE POET 

Nora Hikari is an Asian American transgender poet and artist based in 

Philadelphia. She is a 2022 Lambda Literary fellow, and her work is published 

or forthcoming in Ploughshares, Washington Square Review, Palette Poetry, 

Foglifter, The Journal, and others. Her chapbook, GIRL 2.0, was a Robin Becker 

Series winner and is available at Seven Kitchens Press. She was a finalist for the 

Red Hen Press Benjamin Saltman Award, and can be found at NorahiKari.com.

ABOUT SUGAR HOUSE REVIEW 

We loved reading the work that we’ve published (clearly), and we want an 

opportunity to better hear our contributors. We're featuring audio recordings of 

poems from our pages, read by the poet. This an open invitation to all contributors 

from any of our issues, we were delighted to print your work, now we’re eager to 

hear it.

JOSE HERNANDEZ DIAZ—"EL BOXEADOR" (Issue 25)

Sugar House Review · Jose Hernandez Diaz's "El Boxeador"

EL BOXEADOR

I’ve been a boxer since I was five years old. I grew up on the 

southeast side of town. No one really wants to live here, except us 

Mexicans. My father always wanted to be a professional fighter, 

but he mostly just watched it on the weekends, with a beer. He 

worked as an industrial mechanic for 35 years. That’s how he paid 

for my boxing training. When he saw I didn’t care much for tools, 

he taught me the right hook. He said, “we are Mexican fighters. We 

rarely use the jab. We are undersized but our hearts are made of 

iron. We get in on the inside, like Canelo fighting those tall light 

heavyweights. We come from an Aztec warrior class. Boxing isn’t a 

sport, mijo,” he’d say, “it’s a religion. The boxing Gods don’t forgive.”

ABOUT THE POET 

Jose Hernandez Diaz is a 2017 NEA Poetry Fellow. He is the author of The Fire 

Eater (Texas Review Press, 2020). His work appears in The American Poetry 

Review, Bennington Review, Chestnut Review, Crazyhorse, Georgia Review, 

Huizache, Iowa Review, The Journal, Los Angeles Review, The Missouri Review, 

Northwest Review, Poetry, Southeast Review, The Southern Review, Witness 

Magazine, The Yale Review, and The Best American Nonrequired Reading 

Anthology 2011. He teaches creative writing online and edits for Frontier Poetry.

ABOUT SUGAR HOUSE REVIEW 

We loved reading the work that we’ve published (clearly), and we want an 

opportunity to better hear our contributors. We're featuring audio recordings of 

poems from our pages, read by the poet. This an open invitation to all contributors 

from any of our issues, we were delighted to print your work, now we’re eager to 

hear it.

LAUREN K. WATEL—"THE JAILS" (Issue 25)

Sugar House Review · Lauren K. Watel's "The Jails"

THE JAILS

The jails, they’re full of prisoners. Why are they full of prisoners? 

Because everyone’s doing drugs or selling them. Why is everyone doing 

drugs or selling them? Because they’re bored and desperate. Why are 

they bored and desperate? Because they have no work. Why don’t they 

have work? Because the jobs went away. Why did the jobs go away? 

Because the bosses put in robots. Why did the bosses put in robots? 

Because robots don’t ask questions. Why don’t robots ask questions? 

Because they don’t have minds. Why don’t they have minds? Because 

the scientists haven’t gotten that far. Why haven’t the scientists gotten 

that far? Because the government won’t fund them. Why won’t the 

government fund them? Because they’re funding the army. Why are 

they funding the army? So we can fight. Why should we fight? Because 

we have enemies. Why do we have enemies? Because we’re always 

interfering. Why are we interfering? Because we’re better than they are. 

Why are we better than they are? Because we’re free. Why are we free? 

Because we waged a war to worship our own gods. Why did we wage a 

war to worship our own gods? Because we felt oppressed. Why did we 

feel oppressed? Because they put us in the jails.

ABOUT THE POET 

Lauren K. Watel's poetry, fiction, essays and translations have appeared in 

The Paris Review, The Nation, Narrative, Tin House, Antioch Review, 

TriQuarterly, The Massachusetts Review, Slate, Colorado Review, 

Birmingham Poetry Review, Poetry International, Ploughshares, and the 

Collected Poems of Marcel Proust, among others. She was awarded a visiting 

artist residency at the American Academy in Rome as well as a Distinguished 

Fellowship at Hambidge Art Center. Her work has also won awards from Poets 

and Writers, Moment Magazine-Karma Foundation and Mississippi Review. 

Her prose poem "The House She Lived In" honoring Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg 

was set to music by Pulitzer-winning composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, and 

premiered at the Dallas Symphony

ABOUT SUGAR HOUSE REVIEW 

We loved reading the work that we’ve published (clearly), and we want an 

opportunity to better hear our contributors. We're featuring audio recordings of 

poems from our pages, read by the poet. This an open invitation to all contributors 

from any of our issues, we were delighted to print your work, now we’re eager to 

hear it.