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Upright Members in Good Standing

April 27, 2020 Essays, Issue 19, Issue 19 Essays

The Common Magazine · “Upright Members In Good Standing” by A. Kendra Greene

My boyfriend does not come with me to the penis museum. While I pay the eight hundred Icelandic krona to visit 276 specimens of pickled, salted, or mounted manhood, Dustin is at home packing boxes. His home. He is sweating there in the triple-digit heat of a Texas summer, sweating as he arranges his life into banker’s boxes and carries them out in bulky white waves to stack against the blank walls of the new place, the place we picked out together, the first apartment we will ever share. And while all this packing and inventory and heavy lifting has everything to do with me, with us, with bringing an end to the long-distance phase of our relationship and making a life together, it does not yet occur to him that what he’s doing has anything whatsoever to do with an Icelandic penis museum. He has no idea that by the time he picks me up from the airport a few weeks later, I’ll want him to make a donation. Indeed, at first, I do not know it myself.

Always Know

April 27, 2020 Issue 19, Issue 19 Poetry, Poetry

By RON WELBURN

Life knows no embarrassment
than being unprepared,
caught in the rain flatfooted
before ceremonies,
nabbed in the seat of the pants
by the stealth of Coyote.

Notebooks of Maladies

April 27, 2020 Arabic Fiction, Issue 19, Issue 19 Fiction, Translation

By EMAD BLAKE

Translated by ELISABETH JAQUETTE

1—Idiot

The oldest boys in the neighborhood—“bullies,” as our Egyptian neighbors would say—chased that boy… chased me.

I’d long been obsessed with watching Egyptian TV shows and films, sneaking into the cinema to see them because in our house it was forbidden… “forbidden, boy, to go there.ˮ According to my mother, grandmother, and the other women in the neighborhood, screens are the devil’s handiwork: they corrupt good boys and girls. Of course, they’re poor women, without an ounce of luck.

The Dodo

April 27, 2020 Issue 19, Issue 19 Poetry, Poetry

By LESLIE MCGRATH

When she sheds
her last moony
red potential
a woman sheds
also obligation
(insert obligation
elsewhere)
fading from
lure to lore.

From Tanaga

April 27, 2020 Issue 19, Issue 19 Poetry, Poetry

By DON SHARE and JOHN KINSELLA

17.

The cicadas come every…
How many years? The cycles
Are all fucked up now. Even
Insects know the end is near.

The emerald ash borer looks
Like a jewel; its value
Lies in destructiveness to
Species—ours—that feed on ash.

Selections from Sudan

April 27, 2020 Issue 19, Issue 19 Art, Studio

Courtesy of the Hindiyeh Museum of Art

ISLAM KAMIL ALI
UNTITLED (2011)
47 x 62 CM, ACRYLIC ON CANVAS

The Infidel and the Devil

April 27, 2020 Arabic Fiction, Issue 19, Issue 19 Fiction, Translation

By MOHAMED BADAWI HIGAZI

Translated by ROBIN MOGER

Not many of us knew Sharif. He had been gone from the village for more than thirty years, and the few times his name came up, the person in question would glance around and lower their voice almost to a whisper. Men’s heads would cluster together in brief and hasty conference. And should his father, Sheikh Abdennabi Wadd Saleh, appear at the head of the alley and walk their way, or his mother, Hagga Amina Bint Suleiman, approach the store, they would fall silent or change the conversation.

Epithalamium

April 27, 2020 Issue 19, Issue 19 Poetry, Poetry

By EMILY LEITHAUSER

The morning after we decided not to get engaged

(I’d ridden the streetcar alone;

I felt purposeful and ashamed, my mouth stained with wine)

I sat down in the shower and wept

into the crook of one elbow, my arms folded over,

as the shampoo ran down my breasts

and spine. I was studying the contours of my knees, when it

took me suddenly,

Ask a Local with Anika Fajardo: Minneapolis, Minnesota

April 23, 2020 Interviews

With ANIKA FAJARDO

Name: Anika Fajardo

Current city or town: Minneapolis, Minnesota

The most striking physical features of this city/town are . . .

Minneapolis is known as the “city of lakes” because of the five large bodies of water nestled in among the city blocks of houses and small businesses. The lakes give the city a vacation feel during the summer. You can go to the beach, bike and walk, and eat ice cream.

Perfectly Spaced

April 22, 2020 Dispatches

By LIESL SWOGGER

They jog past my window. A clump of three white-haired men, a tight pyramid formation, the front two shoulder to shoulder, the third right on their heels. And I’ll be honest, my first thought is not charitable. “Fucking men,” I think, taking a swig of my coffee. “They never think the rules apply to them. Do they think they’re invincible?”