TLR

Bodacious

FOR ARCHIBALD J. MOTLEY’S BROWN GIRL     She’d walk up and take the sandwich from your hand to feed her kids She’d wear red ’round her rear on Sunday to Sunday service Her lips were painted red Her nails … Continued

Manus

Yvette and I were in bed, watching through a gap in the curtains as my neighbor, Lou Spellman, stood at his mailbox and cried. The corner of the box was pressing into his gut, and he took a handkerchief from … Continued

“Hawks Do Not Share”

Ernest Hemingway met F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald in 1925 when they were all living in Paris. The Great Gatsby had just come out and, according to Fitzgerald, “was not selling well but had very fine reviews.” Hemingway pursued the … Continued

Cyclones

    That night, as Sam slept, Daisy snuck out and drove out of town, the sky clear, the moon half-empty. Ahead of her the tail lights of a semi-trailer. She watched for the gleam of green deer eyes on … Continued

Joke

  When I mention a crush I have on some boy I’ll forget in three weeks’ time or never, call it love, Scuba, my closest friend, rolls his eyes, shoots back Did you pee on him so he’s marked as … Continued

The Prophecy

Holding my death in his mouth I’m reminded of a cat Snapping a canary up All blood and blonde feathers and grey fur Tiny beak and talons no match against that Merciless beast Poor creature  I have arrived here And … Continued

You, Amateur Interpreter

  You would have told yourself as your mother sat in the dentist’s chair, had you known who Wittgenstein was then, “I have to imagine pain which I do not feel on the model of the pain which I do … Continued

Anniversary

      I haunt you because I love you. You are constantly surprised by this. I am made of papier-mâché. You have dreamt of this before, a serious matter. You delight in torment. We were made for this. I … Continued

‘Mysteries of Small Houses’

    To put off doing what I need to, I plan a trip to Detroit with my mom. I spend hours looking at every Airbnb in the city, thinking of all the empty houses. There’s the ones that burned … Continued

Hearses

    A professor once wrote me that to write of fruit or flowers or dreams, no matter how deftly, is the lowest form of metaphor, after processions. Years later, on the subject again, she said that time indicted horses … Continued

The Rat Problem

      The lady upstairs is yelling at her kids. I mean, really yelling. The high whine of these kids’ voices and the pitter-patter lightness of their footsteps suggest the oldest can’t be older than ten—or at least not … Continued

O.

The pleasures of the streets, perfumed with hazelnuts and cheese, medieval rivers, edges reduced to ice. Of walking irregular stones, past the silent, frustrated dead, in black shoes with laces. As we pass, my eyes meet his (same sad longing) … Continued

Historic District

    With purpose, you pull up the blinds. Light enters the room like a feeling violating a man. Sitting up in a bed built for a husband and a wife, I think for a second nature has taken us … Continued

A Report on Forbidden Beverages

    For many years, I did not drink beer and then, suddenly, I did.  Before that, before I drank beer, I drank wine. For many years when I was asked at a party, at a gathering, at an event, … Continued

Minor Neil

They’ll be here soon. I’m not denying that fact. But knowing and accepting are not one and the same. I accept myself, sometimes. I’ll never be more than a fan, but that’s okay, because I’m a good fan. For example, … Continued

[For the first time…]

translated by Nancy Naomi Carlson for the castaways of the Ker Anna       For the first time, we were naked. Who taught us to fall from the tree? What power had we wasted? To which blood founding our … Continued

The Philosophy Student

Translated from Italian by Stiliana Milkova   the philosophy student dreams she has insomnia her hair grows at night spilling from her bed even-numbered strands sprout into serpents’ heads odd-numbered strands splice into steel scissors serpents and scissors battle while … Continued

Once Upon an Ending

          Once upon a time, I wasn’t a good little girl. Momma only had a few rules for my sister, Jane, and me. Rule number one: Always have each other’s backs. Rule number two: Do our … Continued

A Mother of Concern

      Mary worked night shifts because of the babies. At night, when the lights were dimmed in the hospital nursery, she could hold and rock the newborns. During the hubbub of the day, when administrators roamed the halls … Continued

Heart Out

For Marina       My friend tells me my courage is my vulnerability, that in my overthrow of self lies refinement. What part un-hindering & what part exchange? Is it courage that extends the detangling of days? Maybe so. … Continued

Judith and Ahmed: A Story of Friendship

You know what … I was proved fucking right. That’s what happened. People who disagreed with me were saying, ‘There she goes again.’ But I was proved fucking right.—Judith Miller [Chalabi] published three mathematics papers between 1973 and 1980, in … Continued

Dog Ears

    Flouncing when she trots, Perked, cocked, flopped, Flattened, swiveled at Prompts of joy or itch Or curiosity, velvet Flaps opening on secret Zones of sound more Precious than what’s Hidden inside any silken Purse—awareness’s soft Synecdoches, alert just … Continued

Prepared Instruments

 After V.W. & H.D.T. How I wish someone would draft These lines for me. Perhaps I could Revise, develop, finish them, but Then whom would I owe, and what Would be demanded?  Someone Young, I suppose—amused or kind Or shrewd, … Continued

Further Notice

      Later, in the dream of having bought a rambling seaside house, in which just a few rooms had been finished—furnished, decorated— while others remained box-cluttered, empty of design or even purpose, I find a man I know … Continued

all of my days were nights

One night I walk to a bookstore five blocks from my house. The weather is perfect, cool and dry. The Big Dipper fills the canvas of a clear night. I am on my phone renting equipment for work when I … Continued

The Pretty Red-Head

“O Sun it is the time for flaming judgment,”—Guillaume Apollinaire, “La Jolie Rousse”   Always I was misunderstanding the words. Too many guns in the air to be happy. The news but a sour case of pink eye with a … Continued

Wilder Bluer Yonder

I packed my bags and left my home, and when I got to the edge, I did what everyone does and stepped off into the great blue Yawn, which I was surprised to find (though I shouldn’t have been) never … Continued

A Comforting Return

    1. On my desk, two silver and black pens— Zebra pens—wait casually at weird angles for the beginning of something         And in one of the corners of the room, a ghost-silver guitar fashioned after a … Continued

When Will We Get What We Deserve?

  In late spring, Darla said that she was pregnant. Hermann knew that the baby wasn’t his, couldn’t be his, because she was fastidious about him always using a condom. She made him take it off in the bathroom when … Continued

Judith

translated from Polish by Mira Rosenthal   A bored married couple of actors in front of a full hall rattle off their lines Bride and Bridegroom from the Song of Songs. Do you remember? I don’t want it that way: … Continued

Judyta

  Znudzone sobą małżeństwo aktorów przy pełnej sali odbębniało kwestie Oblubienicy i Oblubieńca z Pieśni nad Pieśniami. Pamiętasz ich? Ja tak nie chcę. Już wolę w wierszu uciąć ci głowę jak Judyta Holofernesowi i z nieco teatralną mieszaniną strachu i … Continued

Ten Short Essays

  Attack I’m about to take a walk around the lake. Then I remember that, when I walk around the lake, I am often threatened by angry geese. For a moment I think that maybe I shouldn’t take a walk … Continued

On Childhood

1 My daughter has slid down in the bath so that just the island of her face breaks the surface— and when she holds in her breath her body suspends touching nothing I say can you hear me and she … Continued

On Aesthetics

  Here the boy is fifteen when his father’s friend Paul— six foot six and seething because his saxophone career ended twenty-five years ago and, ever since, he’s taught middle school—calls the boy a little prick, a little piece of … Continued

The Necessity of Saints

    Not to measure my height into the clouds And cheat in the reflected vision, So judge myself soberly, In a way a superior force has dealt with faith:   These things were told me on a sidewalk; Once … Continued

A Rare Condition

After being poked & blood tested by the specialist who spoke Hmmm In several dialects including an obscure amputee sign language I eavesdropped On her conferring with beleaguered foreign colleagues by the soda machine, Whispering vowel-heavy polysyllabic antiseptic gibberish; apparently, … Continued

Open Call

  Because of the number and severity of the stab wounds and the disorder of his room, which indicated a violent struggle, the death of Horton Smith Juaire Jr. was at first listed as a homicide. It was not until … Continued

Sonic Hedgehog

      The gene named for a fruit-fly larva, I read, which when mutated sprouts bristles all over it. One of those genes you better have just right or horrible things can go wrong; e.g. you wind up with … Continued

Granary

When we first started talking about this issue’s theme, I compiled in my mind a cluster of associations and ideas that emerged from granary: plenitude, agriculture, resources, food, slow steady movement. A series of images: red barns, tall silos, highways … Continued

At the Beach ||| SoftBlow

      The distance from one person to the next was equal to the length of a Bridge. There. Right at the edge of it Forty-four full miles from the heart of the house to where the road hit … Continued

[If the rain is everywhere]

        If the rain is everywhere and it is we will soon be taking to the boats and carrying with us only our most precious and lightest things: the birds, in pairs or in flocks, two or … Continued

Home with H

Translated from Danish by Thomas E. Kennedy         Especially in spring in a large party it is clear which persons are closest to death: They don’t know why they avoid each other’s gaze One stares himself blind … Continued

Magnet ||| Kenyon Review

      I. The Void When the number zero had not been invented, when quantities themselves were represented by lines or by pebbles arranged in patterns like those found on dice or dominoes. . .when the composition of matter … Continued