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The New Inexpressible

April 26, 2021 Issue 21, Issue 21 Poetry, Poetry

the inexpressible isn’t that which cannot
be expressed but that which will fall
expressed upon deaf eardrums meet with
sightless eyes centerfolded even
or on the front cover it will escape notice
and upon the face itself remain undetected
because mere expression isn’t all it takes
to be detected to be reasonably considered
expressed to others brothers sisters cousins
or indeed a disinterested passerby
hiding all in plain sight and only the fool thinks
no wait the fool does not even think that
no mystery is gone missing from his equation
a haze of sadness covering what is truly true

Cento for Surrender

April 26, 2021 Issue 21, Issue 21 Poetry, Poetry, Poetry Recordings

By RAGE HEZEKIAH

The Common Magazine · “Cento For Surrender” by Rage Hezekiah

Nostalgia is a well-
intentioned wound,
you have to hold
it in mind all at once—
you have to need it
enough. I’ve been

Light Ranger

April 26, 2021 Issue 21, Issue 21 Poetry, Poetry

By L.S. KLATT

I would kill for the feeling of television.
I felt it once. I felt it holster light.

I felt it clutch me in the dark and treble
my house. All the houses. I felt the firefight

In the Biopsy Room

April 26, 2021 Issue 21, Issue 21 Poetry, Poetry

By KATHRYN HAEMMERLE

I think of all the ways
the women in my family have died,

the slow disease of genetics and childbirth
here in the curve of my cheekbone.

The Cassandras

April 26, 2021 Fiction, Issue 21, Issue 21 Fiction

By EMMA SLOLEY

The cemetery where she meets him after work is both vertiginous and claustrophobic. The graves are crowded closely together, like huddled children cowering from punishment, then there is a short stretch of lawn tilting to the cliff’s edge, and beyond that a sickening void she imagines rushing out to meet her. Why would it occur to someone to build a cemetery on a steep escarpment above the Pacific Ocean? The weed-hemmed tombstones are cracked and bleached. No one has been buried here for ages; they’re all in the fashionable new cemetery out near the airport. The paths are strewn with shards of glass, the torn petals of sad plastic flowers, scraps of trash, and shriveled cigarette butts, and the whole thing might have an air of tawdriness if not for that view: blinding blue sky sliced horizontally by the cliff edge, the wild ocean below. The audacious, swaggering drama of it.

Two Stories

April 26, 2021 Arabic Fiction, Fiction, Issue 21, Issue 21 Fiction, Translation

By FATIMA ZOHRA RGHIOUI
Translated by NASHWA GOWANLOCK

Petty Thefts

I’m frightened of everything. I walk around with my abnormal body. I haven’t learned to accept it yet, this body that bulges in every direction. Now I have two round lumps jutting out of my chest, and shrubbery growing in my armpits and between my legs. And then there’s the fear that’s plunged itself deep inside me.

Piano Movers

April 26, 2021 Issue 21, Issue 21 Poetry, Poetry

By MICHAEL CATHERWOOD

Two Men and a Truck are here to haul our
piano away to a nice woman’s
house, who’s agreed to move it to own
it, so her children can learn to play. An hour
early, two men in the truck pass a pipe
while on my open porch I read
the sports page. I see ribbons of smoke peel
from the open truck window. The ripe

The Good Donkey

April 26, 2021 Fiction, Issue 21, Issue 21 Fiction, Podcasts & Audio, Poetry Recordings

By TALIA LAKSHMI KOLLURI

The Common Magazine · “The Good Donkey” by Talia Kolluri

I am not pleased. Paint is dripping down my hoof and the colors are muddled together. I shouldn’t complain. I agreed to it, of course.

Hafiz is putting together a zoo. And he asked me to be the zebra.

“You’re a very good donkey, habibi,” he told me three days ago, “but the border is closed, and everyone says prices for using the smuggling tunnels have gone up. I can’t afford the zebra in Damascus, and the one in Cairo is twice that price.” He gestured wildly, scattering my oats. What a waste.

I don’t know much about borders, but I would do anything for Hafiz. He is more than a father to me.

Instructions for the Endgame

April 26, 2021 Issue 21, Issue 21 Poetry, Poetry

By WYATT TOWNLEY

To see the unseeable, measure
its shadow. It takes eight telescopes
on six mountains and
four continents
ten days.

Strength

April 26, 2021 Issue 21, Issue 21 Poetry, Poetry

By DENISE DUHAMEL

I’d started a strength training class ($25 a pop)
after my mom’s hands no longer worked, after her arms
hung weak by her sides and she didn’t have the power
to pull up her pants. For two years I’d thought