Kei Lim

Ramadan in Saint-Denis

May 8, 2023 Essays, Issue 25, Issue 25 Essays

Saint-Denis

It is Ramadan in Saint-Denis, the banlieue north of Paris. It is almost 21:00h on a June Sunday, and the sun hangs a hazy orange in the sky. The elevator in Amir’s building is broken so we climb the six stories, past the floors of muffled French Arabic and children’s screams. His mother’s home has one bedroom and a narrow tile-floored kitchen, like the one in my grandmother’s apartment in Beijing. There is a cigarette lighter for the stove, but I am too clumsy for this, so Amir manages.

From A Distance, He Approaches

May 8, 2023 Arabic Fiction, Fiction, Issue 25, Issue 25 Fiction, Kuwait, Translation

By KHALID AL-NASRALLAH
Translated from the Arabic by NASHWA NASRELDIN

Barefoot. I don’t know how we did it.

Around noon on those April days, my father would do his best to stop me from going out. After lunch, he’d stomp around the house locking all the doors: the kitchen, the front door, the back door, the main living room. Sometimes he’d even try to drag me to his bedroom and force me to take a nap.

The Kitchen

May 8, 2023 Arabic Fiction, Fiction, Issue 25, Issue 25 Fiction, Kuwait, Translation

By ESTABRAQ AHMAD
Translated from the Arabic by MAIA TABET

The Troublesome

The Sink

During her worst fits, my waters couldn’t drown out her cries. Stacking plates, cups, spoons, and knives, her fists flailed against the sides of my bowl; she’d stare at the gushing water stream, her head slackened against her chest.

In a departure from daily routine, she went on an angry, blabbering rampage, hurling her son’s glass pill bottles into my lap, smashing cups and plates, and turning on the faucet. Water and bits of glass floated everywhere—oh, my, I got so dizzy and regurgitated the larger pieces that had lodged in the drain.

She kept kicking me as I coughed my guts up, and she smashed more plates with the skillet.

The specter of her son appeared, grabbed her wrist firmly but tenderly, and wrapped his arms around her from behind. She stopped and breathed a deep sigh but didn’t raise her head or turn around.

After the Last Calorie of the Apocalypse / Prayer for the Clinically Obese

May 8, 2023 Issue 25, Issue 25 Poetry, Poetry

By OMOTARA JAMES

On the last day, let there be a fat inhalation
of delight between the lap of our sunrise.

As the tongue separates the doubt from the cream,
let pleasure sift through the metal strainer of time. Only

Putting Up Fish

May 8, 2023 Issue 25, Issue 25 Poetry, Poetry

By MISTEE ST. CLAIR

The Common Magazine · “Putting Up Fish” by Mistee St. Clair

—for my oldest

Rows of Yukon kings hung
in strips over alder frames.
A tin shack held the smoke
so it drifted around the fish,
which dripped a dark orange oil
onto blackened soil. The run

Madonna Litta

May 8, 2023 Issue 25, Issue 25 Poetry, Poetry

By FRANCES RICHEY

c. 1490 Leonardo da Vinci

Oh, Mary! It must have been a revelation
to breastfeed your boy the will of God.
All I had to offer was the usual. For years
after my son was weaned, I still had milk.

Civitella Library, Italian Section

May 8, 2023 Issue 25, Issue 25 Poetry, Poetry

By DIANE MEHTA

The Common Magazine · “Civitella Library, Italian Section” by Diane Mehta

In the operatic corner in the library,
Italian dialects heckle one another—
whose language is honey
on the tongue and who has disjointed
heads off syllables on the pikes of the invaders—
“Ma ti, vècio parlar, rezìsti.”

The August Story

May 8, 2023 Issue 25, Issue 25 Poetry, Poetry, Translation

By YULIYA MUSAKOVSKA
Translated from the Ukrainian by OLENA JENNINGS and YULIYA MUSAKOVSKA

If their history together hadn’t begun this way,
they both would have been left alone, each with their war.
August—hellish, the bathhouse filled with bodies.
She squeezes the familiar palm and comes to life again.
Everything that has happened and didn’t happen to them,
is established, set in stone, unforgettable,

Two Poems by Elaine Reardon

April 12, 2023 Dispatches

By ELAINE REARDON

Kharpert rooftops, Ottoman Empire, c. 1910s. Photo by unidentified photographer, copied by K.S. Melikian of Worcester, MA.
Project SAVE Photograph Archive. Courtesy of Arra S. Avakian

Kharpert

Stories

When I woke in the morning
and begged for stories, Gram said
don’t talk too much, flies
will get into your mouth.
I still wanted a story.
She’d say later, after our work.

She tied an apron around me,
pulled the stool to the table,
gave me parsley, cracked wheat,
ground lamb, and my own basin
of water to wet my hands
as we worked together.

Evergreen

March 29, 2023 Dispatches

By KEI LIM

For Willem (2002-2016)

i

your evergreen forest
knit from pine boughs and hemlock
frayed by even the gentlest winds
without the swell of your breath
to shelter beneath
roots loosen quicker than I can tie them
slipping through my fingers to tangle
deeper into the earth
still, I forage in circles

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