Photos courtesy of author.
Moscow, ID
One day, across the street from the gay coffee shop, a toddler in a blue t-shirt cocked a pistol at me. Silver glinted in October sun. He clicked the trigger, Dad and Mom looking on. Got her is what the kid said to Dad, a man closer to seven feet tall than six.
Only when I passed them in the crosswalk did I see the orange plastic that covered the gun’s tip: a toy. Dad ruffled the boy’s hair. I buried myself in my cell phone.
As our new year of publishing and programming picks up speed, we at The Common wanted to reflect on the pieces that made last year such a great one! We published over 200 pieces online and in print in 2023. Below, you can browse a list of the six most-read pieces of 2023 to see which stories, essays, and poems left an impact on readers.
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Two Poems from The Spring of Plagues by Ana Carolina Assis, translated by Heath Wing
“i wish I could / prevent your death / and bury your body alive / in the puny damp / earth
we tended / so that it kept on living / mandioca corn banana / would not sprout forth /
but instead / acerola cherry blackberry pitanga hog plum.”
January 2023 Poetry Feature, with work by Tina Cane, Myronn Hardy, and Marc Vincenz
“Sheila had IHOP delivered to her apartment in El Alto, NY / on January 6th
so she could kick back self-proclaimed terrorist / that she is and eat pancakes
while watching white supremacists / storm the Capital.”
Moscow, ID
The neighbor children are in the Evangelical cult that Vice and The Guardian wrote about last year. They’re not allowed to speak to us, which is a thing no one has ever said aloud but is true, nonetheless. This town is full of true things that no one says aloud because we can’t or wouldn’t dare or because no one would believe us anyway.
Marilynne Robinson, I think, or maybe Ruth Ozeki, wrote something about how the wheat here is green before it’s yellow and everyone from elsewhere gets to selectively forget that and picture us golden and glowing year-round.
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