The Glutton's Kitchen

Forgot About His Mother

Translated from Polish by Piotr Florczyk     She was dying in the basement, on sacks of coal, crying for water, crying for her son, no one was there.   The son forgot about his mother, the son was cleaning … Continued

Skybar

Translated from Arabic by Thoraya El-Rayyes   Like stars on a dark black night, flocks of clouds passing before them—that was how bodies writhed in the celestial nightclub, slicing the lights as they undulated. The Almighty Boss sent forth his … Continued

A Girl Scout’s Dream

Translated from Polish by Piotr Florczyk     When they execute me, not everything will come to an end. The soldier who shot me dead will approach and say: as young as my daughter. And he’ll lower his head. ||| … Continued

Shepherd’s Asylum

In the hipbone slopes of the Owyhee Mountains, my sister lives in an abandoned shepherd’s homestead. She says the white alkaline hills are closing in on her, that she can taste the iron in the sand and it tastes like … Continued

Only Sand Survived

Translated from Polish by Piotr Florczyk     All week they hauled sandbags night and day to the gate, to the windows. Facing the Germans, our house will be a fortress, we’ll survive. At dawn on the seventh day a … Continued

Reprise

Riding behind him it comes back to me like a kindness, this feeling   of hearing a song I’d forgotten but know the words to—or my mouth does,   the way my legs know to keep pedaling so I’m free … Continued

After Apple-Picking

They started taking things from her. First, the marriage, then the job. She should have been chosen as deputy county attorney. She knew it was because of the divorce, which dirtied her in the courthouse. She was a domestic-abuse victim … Continued

Big People Everywhere

The woman is big but she is not beautiful. I am somebody who likes beautiful women, regardless of size, in fact for a long time I thought the bigger the better, but not like this. She is big like the … Continued

The Safety of Home

“Nothing wrong,” says the husband near the end of Shirley Jackson’s story “Paranoia.” But like the couples in David Lynch’s Lost Highway or Michael Haneke’s Caché, who keep being delivered surveillance VHSs—tapes in which, first their homes and then they … Continued

The Arsenal Theater

White phosphor we wait for winter. People go. Inside the house sarin gas I know a village spills out into sky while a man pumps his gas america- stubborn. White phosphor my arches itch, my blood carried by mosquitoes as … Continued