“so this is the world. / I’m not in it. / It is beautiful.” — Mary Oliver, from “October” my sister was a doe, a rose, and the wind.dirt clung to our hooves, a way for the earth to say: you are the dirt clinging to you.so our world was made.we stepped on gooseberry skinswe …
Now that I know where my mother was and could easily reach her by the mail,I found it hard to let her know that, despite her attempts at having little to dowith me, I would depart from the earth before her, so instead of writing herabout these truths, I am writing to you, knowing that …
This piece by Alain Mabancko is translated by Nancy Naomi Carlson here’s where the tree will tell us the depth of the groundthe rooting of our dreams the muffling of our dead from packing the agesdown to the dawns of used-up days the house is half-crumbled the roof destroyedby the windsbut nighttime shadows look after …
Think of Penelope—eating alone in her room. Tiredof her mind’s grief’s appetite,she goes downstairs one night to join her unwanted guests.It’s true a hordeof cowbird males might court one female in the breeding season, might throwa smaller fledglingfrom its nest to make space for the new brood. Whereis her son, Telemachus?Let’s say just oneof her …
Someone is holding out a globe of the world as it might look in the far future, and everything is already all right, there are just no people on this globe. If you look very closely at one of the small islands remaining, some bees do their danse macabre around the undisturbed hive, the size …
This piece by Jerzy Jarniewicz is translated from Polish into English by Piotr Florczyk Perhaps it would’ve been different. I don’t know.Nobody knows. This kind of knowledgeisn’t expected from a random defense witness, who’s looking for a lighter in his pockets.After a glance it’s obvious they won’t prove anything. Until the language invents an appropriate …
When you first came here, you loved the outlaw construction,the way all the men seemed to carry a knife in the boot. It was wild, wasn’t it?Calculating all the trajectories of treesrelative to your parked car, learning as you did, by the time the schools call outyou best scramble for any batteryand check what it …
St. Joe’s altars in New Orleans have a pile of abundance that’s been sitting out for too long it’s best notto eat it I wonder what to do with my anger when it’s been sitting out for too long I feel fullfrom love today a kind of trinitarian Liebe I woke up startled from a …
It’s a long shadow a human casts whose eyes bend towardshaky rooms where decisions happen by the hour.Iron filings line up, the vectors holding together.Where is the weather going?Next day everything’s unmade, buildings exertinglast year’s entitlements. I knew a guysaid we should close downa month, get our script in order. The writers’ room is closed.I …
The kitchen table was where my mother taught me about the world. No,it wasn’t, becausethere was no kitchen table.She always cooked outside, close to a wall, with firewood.Until one day the wind brought down the fence on her back.After the bricks came hard on her, she disappeared into the rubble. Her back held bruises.It was …