News & Events | Page 152 | The Common | A Modern Sense of Place: Stories, Poems, Essays & Images

Offstage, Christ

October 29, 2018 Issue 16, Issue 16 Poetry, Podcasts & Audio, Poetry

By KRISTINA FAUST
Winner of the 2018 DISQUIET Prize for Poetry

At the meal with the earnest centurion and the woman full of pain, he wanted to say the lamb was delicious. It surprised him to love it as much as he did the blinking gaze of the newly sighted, but to say so didn’t suit the narrative that was running through his fingers like water.

The bed they’d given him for the lonely night was more than adequate for a man. Besides, he was now nearly sentimental about the roughness of linen and the funk of straw.

The History of Sound

October 29, 2018 Fiction, Issue 16, Issue 16 Fiction

By BEN SHATTUCK

I was seventeen when I met David, back in 1916. Now I don’t very much care to count my age. It’s April 1972 here in Cambridge. White puffballs that must be some sort of seedpod have been floating by the window above my writing desk for days, collecting on the sidewalk like first snow.

Three

October 29, 2018 Fiction, Issue 16, Issue 16 Fiction, Translation

By CHRISTIAN IBARRA

Translated by JENNIFER ACKER

The three of them play cards in the dining room. This is the story. Nothing else. Collectively, they’re almost three hundred years old. They drink juice and laugh. Now one of them turns on a small radio, which plays “Autumn Leaves.”

On Negative Capability

October 29, 2018 Issue 16, Issue 16 Poetry, Poetry

By JOHN MURILLO

       Whitewalls Mudflaps
Late night howling down
       a dark dirt road Headlights
killed and so the world gone
       black but for the two blunts
lit illuminating Jojo’s fake gold
       grin One girl each screaming
from the backseat we raced
       the red moon rawdogged
the stars

The Yoke’s On Us

October 29, 2018 Issue 16, Issue 16 Poetry, Poetry

By CHRISTOPHER SPAIDE

We broke the law and into smiles.
We sowed dissent and daffodils.
We wiped our tears and private files.
We stacked the deck and dollar bills.

We Used To Call it Puerto Rico Rain

October 29, 2018 Issue 16, Issue 16 Poetry, Podcasts & Audio, Poetry

By WILLIE PERDOMO

The rain had just finished saying, This block is mine.

The kind of rain where you could sleep through two breakthroughs and still have enough left to belly sing in the ambrosial hour.

Blood pellets in the dusk & dashes of hail were perfect for finding new stashes; that is to say, visitations were never announced.

A broken umbrella handle posed a question by the day care center.

Overlook Kentucky

October 29, 2018 Issue 16, Issue 16 Poetry, Poetry

By RACHEL DANIELLE PETERSON

The Burrow

October 29, 2018 Fiction, Issue 16, Issue 16 Fiction

By TERE DÁVILA

They started building right away, as soon as it was safe to go outside.

“I can feel them moving!” Cristina squealed, standing knee-deep in leaves.

“Their teeth tickle!” laughed Zoe.

Something had caught their attention as they searched for pebbles and twigs. They crouched amid the soggy storm debris, then sprang up, kittenlike, uncombed curls against the gray sky, chattering and unaware of my presence. But as soon as they saw me approaching they stopped and exchanged looks. Cristina bit her bottom lip and smiled, a small and well-calculated gesture of contrition designed to deflate a scolding, but Zoe, the eldest, fixed her eyes on me, and her body tensed. She seemed ready to run, like a surprised wild thing.

Four Skies

October 29, 2018 Issue 16, Issue 16 Poetry, Poetry

By JOANNA KLINK

What have you, in such indignation, become. Dusty—
a vaulted interior echoing with air, envy, blood.
Vanity’s steady hum. Each wrong done to you
a gate that opens forever into storm. Farewell to cobwebs
swept with water-lights. Farewell to children who smile off
into the distance.

de Las Pisadas Del Insomnio / from The Footsteps of Insomnia

October 29, 2018 Essays, Issue 16, Issue 16 Essays, Translation

By ANA MARÍA FUSTER LAVÍN
Translated by JENNIFER ACKER

An English translation follows the Spanish.

Día 29 desde el huracán y sin luz. Todavía las jornadas en mi trabajo, por la falta de energía, son más cortas. Mi oficina, a la que llamaba (y ya todas mis amistades conocían como) las catacumbas jurídicas, se perdieron, por lo que nos reubicamos en la biblioteca. Intento llegar lo más temprano posible, para traerle agua fría a mi querido amigo y colega Francisco, para preguntarle a los demás cómo están, si han dormido, a Pabsi si tiene gas y saber cómo siguen su mamá y Lalo (el gato), y a la vez contarles o contarnos todos a modo de terapia de grupo que seguimos a oscuras, que algunos no tienen ni techo, que el gobierno nos amputa las esperanzas en pequeños trocitos, que muchos se han ido, muerto, enferman, emigran, permanecen….