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The Stranger

May 2, 2022 Fiction, Issue 23, Issue 23 Fiction, Translation

Farah was struggling to keep her balance in the heaving crowd near the locked gate. Despite how long she would have to wait to get into the hall at Amman University—where she’d already been standing for more than an hour—she remained both calm and cheerful. She was even humming a song—the last one she’d listened to on the way from the border crossing to a modest hotel in the Jordanian capital where she was sharing a room with the university friend joining her for the Fairouz concert.

Public Fishing Dock

May 2, 2022 Issue 23, Issue 23 Poetry, Poetry, Uncategorized

By RALPH BURNS

The Common Magazine · “Public Fishing Dock” by Ralph Burns

We had to leave because someone saw my
father set his bottle down. Because
of something in us we leaned into one another

To My IUD

May 2, 2022 Issue 23, Issue 23 Poetry, Podcasts & Audio, Poetry

By MADELEINE MORI

The Common Magazine · “To My IUD” by Madeleine Mori

I’m halfway home to Bed-Stuy
when I feel the cervical cramp.
I was told they’d be getting worse

Breakfast of Champions

May 2, 2022 Issue 23, Issue 23 Poetry, Poetry

By TINA CANE

I woke up in a panic this morning thinking what if my love language

is granola? I found a quiz online but was too chicken to take it having had

Russian bots once read my face and place me alongside a woman holding a mango

or some bullshit in Gaugin
nothing exotic for me today

The Birthday

May 2, 2022 Fiction, Issue 23, Issue 23 Fiction

By EIDER RODRÍGUEZ

Translated by JULIA SANCHES

At the end-of-year meeting, the teacher had informed me that Izadi needed to take up a sport, “discover the strength she had inside her,” “meet people,” “socialize,” “work on her independence.” The teacher said these things and other things, just as he did at the end of every school year. I pretended to be surprised, but I knew all of that already. Usually, I was on top of her, and I figured that was a good thing, or maybe I didn’t know, I wasn’t sure. In any case, Izadi was special, and that was the price to pay for raising her with principles. I wanted to enjoy her company as much as possible—after all, I’d wanted to have her so badly. Before Izadi, I’d never taken care of anyone, at least not for such a long period of time, and it was more complicated than I’d thought it would be, much more complicated than just loving someone. Weekends, holidays, every single day… I took care of everything as if it were a lesson plan. I was tired; maybe that was why our relationship had deteriorated. So that summer I signed Izadi up for kayaking lessons even though she didn’t want them.

The Hindiyeh Museum of Art: Selections from Palestine

May 2, 2022 Issue 23, Issue 23 Art, Studio

Courtesy of the Hindiyeh Museum of Art

Laila Shawa
Untitled (1965)
Oil on Canvas (70 x 50 cm)

Three Omens of Federico da Montefeltro

May 2, 2022 Fiction, Issue 23, Issue 23 Fiction

By BEN STROUD

Urbino, 1472

Ottaviano held the staff high and steady as Scipio tugged at the bunches of leaves fixed to its top.

“He remains content?” Ottaviano asked the giraffe’s keeper.

“He does,” the keeper said. “Twice since sunrise he’s moved his bowels.”

Ottaviano watched Scipio chew. With his knobbly horns, his puzzled hide, and his great neck, he had clearly been made for a far different existence in his home beyond the Nile, a home for which even the library’s grandest atlas possessed only the most rudimentary of maps. And yet, snatched from that home, confined to his pen, the animal betrayed neither alarm nor sorrow.

A Letter to Leena

May 2, 2022 Issue 23, Issue 23 Poetry, Poetry

By MARY JO SALTER

I came when you were born,
but soon the flying stopped.
By the time I came again,
we drove in private cars

Who Drew the Curtains?

May 2, 2022 Fiction, Issue 23, Issue 23 Fiction, Translation

By SHEIKHA HUSSEIN HELAWY

Translated by NARIMAN YOUSSEF

The pores of life are clogged in this room. Making it difficult to breathe. There’s a hanging smell of death that’s impossible to miss. Visitors are unnerved by it. Except those visitors whose nerves have been hardened by the tedium of their dutiful weekly visits to the woman at the far end of the room: boredom and emptiness compressed into no more than half an hour.

Curses

May 2, 2022 Arabic Fiction, Fiction, Issue 23, Issue 23 Fiction, Translation

By EYAD BARGHUTHY

Translated by NASHWA GOWANLOCK

He stormed out of the house, yelling and cursing. His belly, hemmed in and taunted by high-waisted underpants (which had once been white), flopped over his waistband as if trying to flee from his too-short pants. He cursed those raucous kids; cursed their parents, those bastards; cursed the father who spawned those wretched creatures. As for his other neighbors: in a matter of seconds they were at the black iron railings, gripping onto the bars that surrounded the high windows to stop reckless children from falling yet still allow the adults to enjoy the view over the city. Meanwhile, the Syrian characters of the soap opera were left to discuss amongst themselves the various methods of smuggling weapons and prisoners, and how to free themselves from the yoke of the French colonizer.