There’s smoke and there’s children burning their fingers on the cashews they pluck from the fire.
The boatman wants us to hire him, says the Swahili-speaker among us, but first this boatman is searching for wood for a new tiller. The Swahili-speaker also says not to try for the cashews in the fire ourselves. Papayas will fall, we’ll whack them down with sticks, he says. Let the children have the nuts.
Man who gave all the benefit of the doubt,
man of beer and doughnuts, man of wieners and maple syrup,
sweet-toothed man, man of the one-liner,
By AMY BRILL
Joseluís is earlier than he needs to be. The Tur Boliviano office is empty and dark, hot and dry, like the streets outside. The hard plastic chairs smell of sweat, dust, spit, the accumulated filth of thousands of backpacks dragged through hundreds of cities and towns, through airports and rail stations and other places he has never seen. Leaning back and closing his eyes, he imagines the dirt of Paris, the scum of Buenos Aires, and smiles to himself. Gracias a Dios, he mutters, repeating the last line of the speech he has memorized, the speech he will deliver later, when he has roared across the finish line. Gracias al GMC. Gracias a ustedes.
By LEE JOHNSON
The ratchet strap unlocked its front door, and Jack the Uncle and I made our way into the air-conditioned barroom, took our stools. We mopped our faces with napkins from the rail and left them crumpled there in front of us. Skip was in the kitchen taking his time checking keg levels. “I need one now,” Jack the Uncle said. He twisted his fingers together and held back the shakes. “All this waiting around,” he said, “it ain’t right.”
William Hogarth (1697–1764), the eighteenth-century English artist known for his satirical views of contemporary life, first published The Four Times of Day engravings in 1738, based on paintings completed two years earlier. Although some of Hogarth’s other series profess a moral, the intent of these works was to portray humorous caricatures of contemporary figures. The images are rich in detail, providing a glimpse into the world of 1730s London.
There were four of us, following a dirt road which began
in the foothills and went right up into the mountains
where a little cottage was waiting for us.
By NADINE BOTHA
I could find a million nuances for how to improve me and influence my life,
as though, if I could just identify that one—like The One, the love—
I would know, it would know and that would be that.
I keep my tools
hidden,
until the sun rasps
its black breath over
the suburbs. Only then
the Body rearranges
itself around
the other. points of entry and exit,
embraces. Embraces. the
thrill of skin. density
surrenders to Liquid. semen, blood,
mucous, milk. the Body yields to
from Invisible Earthquake
1st May, 12h38
I’m navigating in and out
Of mental combat
Trying to figure
Exactly what station I’ve pulled into,
How to answer that simple question
How are you?
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