Books burning 3:39 a.m.
Chapter 6, Don Quixote.
Touch-me-nots
Wilting-in-progress.
Aspire à la Ashbery
Devote to the Impossible.
Darling, did you dry-
Clean my martini?
Proceed with caution:
Grief under repair.
R. Zamora Linmark’s new poetry collection is Pop Verite. He lives in Manila.
Browse a list of the ten most-read new pieces of 2025 to get a taste of what left an impact on readers. 2025 was a momentous year for The Common: our fifteenth anniversary, our 30th issue, even a major motion picture based on a story in the magazine.
AIMEE NEZHUKUMATATHIL
Sometimes when they were young, I felt like / I was underwater and couldn’t make out sounds / or reason or rhyme, only coral clicks and distant / whale songs. A shiver of eel near my ankle. But /
trust me: one day you’ll surface. They start / walking, then running, and then they sit behind / a wheel.
ALAA ALQAISI
We stepped out with our eyes uncovered. / Gaza kept looking through them— / green tanks asleep on roofs, a stubborn gull, / water heavy with scales at dawn. // Nothing in us chose the hinges to slacken. / The latch turned without our hands. / Papers practiced the border’s breath.
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