Boyhood

Kate Champagne

I am the seashore
and memories
are what my small, 
tow-haired boy
gives to me.

He squats down
on my coarse, 
speckled skin, 
humming as he 
digs for rocks or
shells or anything 
that he can shove 
into his tiny cargo-
pant pockets and 
bring home with him.

Before leaving, he
swirls his index finger
in a series of spirals,
and I wonder
if he somehow intuits
its meaning:
that life is a cycle, 
that the tide is 
already creeping in, 
that time is sending
its waves for the
inevitable erasure. 

Even now I can
hardly remember
how his wrinkled, 
searching hand felt 
as it found my face
or what his voice 
sounded like: the water
has swept it all away.

But I remain flooded 
with the knowledge 
of loving him, 
whoever he was and
whoever he will be. 

Kate Champagne lives in the Twin Cities. A lover of languages, she holds a Master’s in Spanish from Middlebury Language Schools in Vermont with a specialization in linguistics. She teaches Spanish by day and writes in the in-between, especially moved to give voice to the poetry of the everyday experience and the complexities of the interior life. Kate has been published in Folio Literary Journal and Allegro Magazine and has work forthcoming in Veritas Journal and Quillkeepers Press.

Art: Nia Hughes (she/her) is an oil painter currently pursuing her BFA in Studio Art at Oregon State University. Her practice centers on human connection, exploring how emotions and memories can serve as points of empathy; moments in life that ache with nostalgia and slip just out of reach. Working in semi-realistic portraiture, she captures these fleeting feelings through facial expressions, color, and quiet storytelling that is intimate and personal.

Nia is part of the Scholar Cohort for the Patricia Valian Reser Center for the Creative Arts and the recipient of the Dr. Helen E. Plinkiewisch Art Scholarship for the 2024–2026 academic years. Her work was also recently featured in the Personal Mythology exhibition at the LaSells Stewart Center during Summer 2025. Nia believes art can reach the parts of ourselves we neglect or shut away, allowing us to feel seen in ways words often can’t. Through her work, she hopes to create moments of reflection, warmth, and shared understanding.