January 2022
In this issue
Contents
Lotus on the water
John breathes in deeply, feeling his chest muscles expand. Blood rushes around his shoulder muscles. He feels good. He’s going home now and will be able to be there for a while because he was told something this morning that he never knew until then: he’s non-essential.
Who are you without your things?
The cup broke into three pieces. There was no cinematic splatter of fragments; just a flat note of three sturdy pieces and a few splinters..
The Essence of Your True Origin
The tight fabric of the kite kicked against the wind and shot up into the sky. It was an exceptionally windy afternoon, but the sky..
Blue Sugar
It was time. Mama and Daddy said it was time. I was almost nineteen years old. I could haul wood, split logs, drive Daddy’s tractor,..
“La Tele”
Alessa’s mother left for work at 6 a.m. cada día, not a minute too early and not a segundo too late. Within fifteen minutes, Alessa..
Monumental
When he fell, Frank Wetherell became the sixty-first worker to die in the construction of the tower. It would be another year and three weeks..
Dad of Mine
Sometimes I’d worry that the greatest thing about me, the thing the world would remember me for above all else, was Dad. Mom was great..
The Wall
The headline was the death of someone the media called a ‘bright young actor’. Abha took a sip of her morning tea and went on..
Abecedarian for A Child Brought Up with Magic
Architecture meant nothing— except blanket forts in August. I didn’t know aboutBrutalist monoliths, Renaissance churches & Gothic arcs. I only knew aboutCrafting glue. I smattered..
4 poems by Diego Valeri in Translation
Diego Valeri is an Italian poet and literary critic affectionately remembered as ‘the poet of Venice’. Laura Valeri translates four of his poems here.
Bird-Scattered
He broke my spine down the middle,folded me between vertebraelike a grocery listand carried me to the mountaintopwhere the ground is too hard to dig…
America’s Coast Is Ragged
America’s coast is ragged at the bottomYou know this from maps, of courseBut you don’t know it until you fly down into Louisianaon a late..
the lake
i walk into the lake and die therethe search team drags nothingbut water to the shore i was just a kid after alland my blood..
Entre Rios
Born between rivers, you are infinitelycultivated. Sand backwashed from the ocean. Good silt down from the plains. Fermented in Disneyworld bacteria, embryos fasciculate in polluted foam…
The Burial of the Dead/The Agony of the Living
2 APRIL is the cruellest month, breedingLilacs out of the dead land, mixingMemory and desire, stirringDull roots with spring rain… What are the roots that..
Leaving the Nest
My son and I tried to save a baby bird on our walk together. At a first glance, all we could understand was, that it..