Written in Polish by Jerzy Ficowski. Translated by Jennifer Grotz and Piotr Sommer. where the green snake at the bottom of a dark cellar under the mossy cover of rumbling and wood rolled around itself and unrolled … Continued
Written in Japanese by Hiromi Itō. The first time I ever heard about coyotes Was in a book called (in Japanese) Setons’ Animals for Boys and Girls There I encountered Lobo the Wolf King, bighorn sheep, a … Continued
You remind me of the Underground Railroad. I’ve learned to watch for the kerosene lamp aglare in your distance. Past the fuel and wick at the far end of your forest, there’s a mud basement, a soot-slick coal cellar with … Continued
We thank you for your interest, an urge from within, a special something. A sea of metaphysical books before they amounted to clairvoyance. An ether inside a higher ether. Two sensitivities to one whole and a dimension of your dormant … Continued
I wandered like a white girl. Oversized backpack, a money belt full of sports bar tips, and a penchant for men with guitars. A fissure in my heart and bad taste in my mouth. I couldn’t afford Europe so I … Continued
On February 21, 2015, my brother and I had a rare musical experience: we watched a band that we love perform a song in an otherwise empty room, which is as close as you can get, in life, to how … Continued
—FL, our nation’s oldest city When my father saw her sunbathing her lean body that would one day push me from it, over and over,maybe he knew in an instanthis bohemian life had ended. Knew from the string-tied birdsfastened around … Continued
The elocution lessons have been a great success! It is a matter of biting and swallowing. Clean bites and frequent sorrows. It’s so terrible—nothing is the god of me. I’m a grassy pit, I’m organized around nothing, a … Continued
This morning I scrubbed a charred spatula. It wasn’t light out yet. I hadn’t been able to sleep through the night so I made myself get out of bed in the dark, made myself go downstairs and hit the kitchen’s … Continued
One year into the twentieth century, eight orchid hunters landed on the shores of the Philippines intent on wresting orchids from their marshy homes. As soon as I could talk, I wanted to be a collector, but of … Continued
When my father broke parole and went back to prison, my face widened with red pimples of hearsay. For hours, I leaned on the refrigerator door, tasting rotten food. I slipped in the woods, stropped a buck knife, let go. … Continued
In the Balkans, nothing vanishes completely. In my hometown, people give directions like this: You go two blocks past the oil refinery, and then one block up, past the military barracks, and then turn left. . . . The oil … Continued
Translated from Italian by Gini Alhadeff Hannelore, a girl without a fixed residence, is the only witness to a fire in the apartment of Fraulein von Oelix. A modest, gray afternoon. Vitreous. The fraulein is a kind woman, wilted … Continued
My love wanted a glass of water so I pulled an old, plastic, dirty cup out of my bag and offered it to him to fill with water. My love said that if he were put in a poem, no … Continued
In our field is a bull. It is just the head—the horns sticking out from the snow. The bull died suddenly and the owners wanted to know why and so my husband sent the lab a tissue sample. In the … Continued
Since we first planned it, I have always thought of this issue’s theme as environmentalist. “I live here”: this is my planet, my legacy, my context, resources, responsibility. But one of the advantages of gestating a literary magazine is that … Continued
1. It was one of the only places in their house where logic and order did not prevail. He had dreams about it sometimes; in one, the drawer appeared in the guise of a giant shipboard valve that, when opened, … Continued
I am going to build you an island and you are going to love it. I am going to carve your face into a mountain. I am going to buy you a present. It is a cat and you are … Continued
The bad egg smell of it always brought a lot back. Lindsey was young when she started using Clarins self-tanning products, she couldn’t remember how young—her parents were still married; it was the summer of the boat. The boat in … Continued
Gleason developed the WUG Test in 1958: This is a WUG. Now there is another one. There are two of them. There are two _______. This man zibs. A man who zibs is a _______. The children made the … Continued