No. 20
"Missing is a strange feeling. It doesn’t have to mean you are wishing to be in the place you are missing."—Linda Schenck translates Kerstin Ekman; Marilyn Hacker translates Jean-Paul de Dadelsen; Ander Monson on marginalia; Helen Oyeyemi goes blonde; Nigel Peake listens to the sounds of a city; plus new fiction by Colin Barrett, Eric Bennett, Jonathan Lee, Sara Majka, and Per Petterson; and poems by Kimberly Grey, F. T. Marinetti, Lynn Melnick, and others.
Fiction
The Last String
No. 20 • Kerstin Ekman
There were so many staring faces out there. Women are the worst, she thought. Why is that so? What did we do wrong? But she knew.Fiction
High Dive
No. 20 • Jonathan Lee
It seemed the kind of day when nothing serious could happen, the weather storybook pure. The kind of day when a man of Mason’s age might fall into an excitingly pointless affair, or combine a number of interesting flavors of ice cream on a single delicate cone.Fiction
Being a Blonde
No. 20 • Helen Oyeyemi
For my part I was always a little disturbed by him because I’d never heard him tell a lie. That was horrifying to me, like living in a house with every door and window wide open all day long.Fiction
Stand Your Skin
No. 20 • Colin Barrett
The teachers thought him thick—and Bat was thick—but it was only when some of the other kids dubbed him Book Sniffer on account of how close he put his face to the page that he realized something was up.Fiction
A Man Without Shoes
No. 20 • Per Petterson
No one in the kitchen really knew what “social aspirations” meant, it had to be a new expression, but Uncle Rolf had read a few books and thought he was damn clever.Poetry
Exercise for the Evening
No. 20 • Jean-Paul de Dadelsen
Stop. Instead of panting and gasping from second to second / Like a torrent hurtling from rock to rock with no special meritPoetry
Regular Organ Transplants Will Make You Live Forever
No. 20 • John Deming
I’m scrubbing my face with a peach pit.Poetry
Four Problems
No. 20 • Noah Eli Gordon
His latest project is a long poem comprised of several thousand similes without subjects. Like golf.Poetry
Summer Luncheon for Painters and Sculptors
No. 20 • F. T. Marinetti
After a long period of repose, a painter or sculptor who wishes to resume his creative activities at three on a summer afternoon will try in vain to excite inspiration with a traditional, succulent lunch.Fiction
Strangers
No. 20 • Sara Majka
When she left he watched her walking in the thick air, her white blouse lit by the moon, like she was a spectral thing moving away from him. But what good is there in keeping the things you don’t want, simply because they are something?Art
In the City
No. 20 • Nigel Peake
The street has a certain length and the pavement a particular depth.Fiction
What’s Left of What’s Left
No. 20 • Eric Bennett
He says it destroys what it imitates by imitating it. Lonnie says a lot of things I don’t understand. But I know he wouldn’t want me riding in your car. I don’t ride in cars. Where’s your car?Fiction
Helping
No. 20 • Arna Bontemps Hemenway
There is something vaguely troubling to her about men: their energies never seem contiguous.Feature
Dear Defacer
No. 20 • Ander Monson
In truth I too defaced—books, surely, furiously, variously, before I understood their worth; but also: walls, homes, computer systems, aboveground pools, school buses, schools, school desks and lockers, bathroom stalls, urinals, garage doors, a bus station, car glass, cars, glass block windows, wineglasses at parties, Mr. Millenbach’s shed.Order A Public Space
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