By JEFF McRAE
We scraped the Mississippi
mud off our old piano and father
blew his solos out the open window
and over the meadow
and mother made me strut
with her double-stops, drum sticks
By HALA ALYAN
When the warplanes come, I pluck them
from the blue sky like Tic Tacs. The cupboard
is always full of honey and needles. Merlot and Marlboros.
The rumor of America around my neck.
Uwi verb
to go back to your residence.
One word, meaning to return,
not just anywhere, but home.
I rode a slow bus out of blackness.
Five a.m. in northern Greece.
The language, blurry and mumbled.
I paid pastel money for a bus
ticket to Ouranopolis whose name
means “City of Heaven.”
By TOM SLEIGH
“Life is not a walk across a field…”—Pasternak
For ten years, Hannah, the world convinced me
that thorn trees, desert, Land Rovers tricked out
with CB radios, machine guns and armor plate,
grew more real the harder it became
to fulfill my nightly promise to rebar and rubble
that some final vowel would reverse time
We were born here so we know how to do. This is the way you walk when you walk. An engine of engines. A glitter of glitter. At the corniche we gather by the sex to watch the constellation of earth. Force and proclivity, tingle and strip, all the whole day is before me. Also, it is not yours.
The departure of myth is something we count—a tickbox for each missing hour. Any memory not capitulated is likely to reform. It is forsaken, this tally. The formation of expatriates requires a mobile constitution, a tendency to ruminate, and general indemnity from causes. A coalition of glass bottles rolling up a hill.
By TOM SLEIGH
After the explosions, the big one of the Big Bang,
the little one of the firecrackers set by some kid
By J. KATES
The life-size and realistic bronze has stood on its parklet street corner for so long that no one remembers whom it represented or what it memorializes. The sculptor had done a good job. It looks pleased with itself, proud of its accomplishments in life.
Someone’s hat, an ordinary tweed cap, green and brown, not even worth describing, has fallen off, blown away, and come to rest upside down on the pavement underneath the bronze. Slowly the cap is filling up with coins and bills from passers-by. Clearly, they think this is not public art, but a street-artist slathered in metallic paint from head to foot, holding a pose. And the cap must be his.
A man has stopped to look. He is underdressed for the weather and disturbingly unkempt, talking out loud with nobody to listen. In the old days, we would have taken him to be schizophrenic. Nowadays, surely he must be wearing earbuds and conversing with his girlfriend. We do not give him a second glance. He continues exchanging messages with his teeth.
The bronze figure looks pleased with itself.
We drop a quarter in the cap.
It was like going on holiday, permanently.
Even though I was six, I steered my own ship –
or pretended to, perched atop suitcases,
rolling along the corridors at Frankfurt International.
By VERNITA HALL
Bottled Water Tastes Better
through a straw
because Things Go Better with Plastic.
Recyclable is the new biodegradable
because the light at the end of the tunnel
only seems brighter in a fairy tale.
Don’t miss an issue! Subscribe to The Common.