By LIZA KATZ DUNCAN
The Jersey Shore, NJ, USA
During the Drought
During the drought, we traded water
for wine. Let our plants wither, stopped
doing laundry. Learned to shudder
at the smell of fire. Hoped
it was just some asshole with a chiminea. Every
impostor cloud was suspect: steam rising
By BEN TAMBURRI
Photo courtesy of author
Baileys Harbor, WI
Baileys Harbor has always felt like a place that is eternally old, eternally in the past. It is a destination for quiet summers on the Wisconsin peninsula, where the insignia of range lights and lighthouses decorate the bathroom of every home, and Dala horses wreath the doors. It was the place of my youth, even if it was only for a week each year. As a kid, when my family visited, I felt at home among the retired condo-dwellers.
Photo courtesy of author
Herod, Illinois
There are two Gardens of the Gods, but the one in Southern Illinois fit our budget. On the drive down from Iowa City, we listen to podcasts about Norse and Greek mythology to fill the twins’ heads with ideas of magic, with the hope that they might complain less about the hiking. From their car seats, they point out farms with broken corn stalks and a Burger King, making the argument that we must still be in Iowa. Even though we’ve traveled six hours, their six-year-old brains haven’t yet connected time and distance. But I’ve been in the Midwest long enough to know the difference between the farms around a college town and farms around a farming town. And if I wasn’t wisened to it, the signage would teach me soon enough. Traveling through rest stops and restaurants puts us on edge. We make the outline of an average family with a couple of feral kids, if people don’t linger too long in their gaze.
By AYA LABANIEH
Anaheim, California, dreaming of Damascus, Syria — a place I have not been able to visit since the war began in 2011.
I had a dizzying dream last night. I picked up the phone, and called my grandma—my mom’s mom, the woman who raised me. She was laughing—I told her something about what I had been going through, I don’t remember what. I was being candid in a way that would be unthinkable in the real world; maybe I even told her about the ugly breakup with R. The warm acceptance on the other line astounded me. “Why don’t I call you more often?” I asked her.
“Wallah tayteh, I miss you, you should tell me everything.”
New Madrid, Missouri
I. Mississippi River, Dec. 16, 1811
After midnight, cottonwoods are inconsequential teeth, ripped from the ground by the Mississippi River. An elm snaps like a bird’s neck: an egret. The current betrays every fluttering heart and rages on. A rock becomes sepulcher to the uprooted nest. The river could be less cruel, the winter, more forgiving. Someone could have conceived of this world, but for days, no one but a pair of swans bears witness to the earthquake. The strange earth frees itself into unimaginable fissures. The bank splits and pools into the tall prairie, the way a pail of milk might spill across an oak table. Even water will stain the strongest wood. Supposedly, there is quaking, waking what’s left of the neighbors, small animals that somehow survive. What is survival to the breathless that can’t forget? How long was the egret chick left flinching? There are traces of disruption here: feathers without blood, nests without eggs. Devoid of particular destination, another will roost again.
Photo courtesy of Jules Weitz.
America
This afternoon I am well, thank you.
Walking down Main Street in Danville, KY.
The heavy wind so sensuous.
Last night I fell-
ated four different men back in
Philadelphia season lush and slippery
with time and leaves.
Keep your eyes to yourself, yid.
As a kid, I pledged only to engage
in onanism on special holidays.
Luckily, America.
By CLARA CHIU
Photo courtesy of author.
Amherst, Massachusetts
I. Tablecloth Winter
We are holding the edges of the fabric,
throwing the center into the air.
& even in dusk this cloth
billowing over our heads
makes a souvenir of home:
mother & child in snowglobe.
Yet we are warm here, beneath
this dome, & what light slips through
drapes the dining room white.
By AIDAN COOPER
Photo courtesy of author.
Boston, MA
After Frank O’Hara
Father’s Day, it’s 8 a.m. & I’m late on the road
to Boston because I drooled too much sleeping
I’m driving to a Red Sox game, yes I’ll go
because my dad at one point liked the pitcher
& the tank’s too full to not go
when I reach the MFA beehiving with students
I wonder what’s on & it’s Van Gogh’s Roulin Family Portraits
& I want to park there in case I have time to peruse
but it’s 50 bucks & I’m seeing my family anyway
so I circle Huntington until I find an empty spot
on Parker & it’s Sunday so I’m off the hook
& I don’t thank God pay a thing
Photos courtesy of author.
Florida
After the Storm
(after Donald Justice)
I will die in Portland on an overcast day,
The Willamette River mirroring clouds’
Bleak forecast and strangers not forgetting—
Not this time—designer raincoats in their closets.
They will leave for work barely in time
To catch their railcars. It will happen
On a day like today. Florida’s winter
Brings the satisfaction of sunlit goosebumps
As I read on the veranda wondering whether
To retrieve a sweater. I’m learning
Of life’s many versions of triviality,
Which merely manage to repeat themselves.
Pictou County, Nova Scotia, Canada
Lint blue thunder flavors the memory. The waves are enormous, curling up high and mighty like Caribou antlers. In hindsight: Why are we at the beach during a thunderstorm? But back then, in all of my five year old wisdom: The water is so warm and excited to see me.
The power went out for three days during one hurricane or another. My niece was only a baby, my mom and sister murmuring about warming the milk. Everybody crowded together onto a bed, every blanket in the house employed. I thought it was wonderful. I remember standing in the middle of the street, the wind tearing straight through me. I watched my red hat get sucked up and away into the grey, watched trees flail, calm as a clam, as a strange and lonely little girl transfixed, like watching a snow globe from the inside. The Ship Hector crept up onto Caladh Avenue and my mother finally burned the candle. Life went on.
Don’t miss an issue! Subscribe to The Common.