By GARY METRAS
A cloud drifting over the house tonight
is the shape of an insect, a hellgrammite,
large, long, and singular, crawling through
the waters of dark sky.
1. Texts
“When he brought the chicken into the hotel lobby he became embarrassed, not wanting the staff to see, so he stuffed it inside double-breasted serge and went up in the lift reeking of spit-roast.”
—Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses
We hung, chiefly, with actresses who read only
the highlighted sections of scripts, we understood,
better not to become too involved in narratives
that might not love us, we derived great pleasure
By RAE PARIS
for my niece, who got the part of a vine in The Secret
Garden at her predominantly White school
Your worried face wonders if you can do this. How does
a vine think? What does it feel? Do vines own hearts,
and if so do they beat fast or slow? What about souls?
and I can’t sleep so I’m up thinking
too hard scribbling these words in the dark
because the physics science news I read
before bed is making me crazy now
with incomprehension—it makes
no sense to me that gravity should exist,
what I know about is love:
In this episode of The Common’s Contributors in Conversation podcast, Issue 06 contributors Hisham Bustani and Jamie Edgecombe read and discuss their fiction pieces “Freefall in a Shattered Mirror” and “Blue Mountains.”
In this episode of The Common’s Contributors in Conversation podcast, Issue 06 contributors Rowan Moore Gerety and Eleanor Stanford read and discuss their essays “Well-Armed” and “Geology Primer (Fogo, Cape Verde).”
Forecasts say prepare for rain, so you will—
will keep at the ready tarp and cord, tents
and candles. And you will drink to the gulls
circling and the May sun high above rocks
Expostulate up! up! Route 9, Will.
Ignore the totality of immortality.
Drink up this anti-pastoral.
Hail the Just-a-Buck and Minnow Motors.
Translated by DENIS HIRSON
A little man walks
Through the golden dust
It is a summer’s morning
A morning fresh and mild
As other mornings, other sorrows
He walks across roads
Where no one else walks
With a tiny wooden coffin
Tucked under his arm
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Celebrating 15 Years