No. 21
“She regrets not what was, but what should have been, could have been.” —Marie NDiaye's self-portrait in green; Roxane Gay at war; Edward Carey on seeing and being seen; Rachel Farbiarz and Stefania Heim on Memorial Hill; new fiction by Jensen Beach, Elizabeth Gaffney, and J. Robert Lennon; poems by Camille Rankine, Craig Morgan Teicher, Marina Tsvetaeva, and others; and introducing Jamel Brinkley.
Feature
The Woman in Green
No. 21 • Marie NDiaye
Against melancholy, against regret, common sense and cynicism can do nothing. She regrets not what was, but what should have been, could have been, had she only made some other choice way back then.Fiction
Infinite Happiness
No. 21 • Jamel Brinkley
Uncle Max made an ambiguous face and told me, not for the first time, that black men used to be kings. Then he shifted his Good Humor bar to his left hand, and slapped me. Sometimes I still feel the pop of his ring on my mouth.Fiction
Animals at Uneasy Rest
No. 21 • Jensen Beach
It bothered him she didn’t try to hide it. He would have tried to hide something like this. When he thought this, he understood that his wife was a better person than he was and this bothered him too.Fiction
Noble Things
No. 21 • Roxane Gay
It all happened so fast; it hardly seemed real until the war began and it was too real and then the war ended and nothing had been saved, which was always the case when foolish men made prideful decisions.Art
Memorial Hill: An Illustrated History
No. 21 • Rachel Farbiarz
What does it mean to recognize a person? To know a person? To understand and tell what has happened?Poetry
Two Poems
No. 21 • Marina Tsvetaeva
My humble roof! Smoke from a beggar’s fire! / So different from what I was born into!Poetry
Two Poems
No. 21 • Camille Rankine
I want to give you everything. / This is called a sickness.Poetry
Apprehension of Thursday
No. 21 • Craig Morgan Teicher
1 / You can’t prove it but / 2 / this is reality.Poetry
Heft
No. 21 • Rusty Morrison
A thin glaze left on her palm from a thing held too long / or is it her own thingness / that rose from her hand to meet the bowl or apple or face in a dream, or is it / only memory / leaking from her / almost too slowly to notice.Poetry
The Easement
No. 21 • Joshua Marie Wilkinson
One moth flies above many hands / & I don’t want the words for desire / to fuse to a life of what presents a weedPoetry
See a Furious Waterfall Without Water
No. 21 • Patricia Lockwood
Never has an empty hand been made / into more of a fist, and Waterfall Without / it swings so hard it swings out / of existence. How will anyone get married / now, with no wall of water behind them?Poetry
Everyone’s Dead, the Rest are Gone
No. 21 • Anna Piwkowska
Everyone’s dead, the rest are gone. / What remains are deciduous words tasting of seaweed, / toothbrushes, hairbrushes, shoe brushes.Poetry
Assemblage
No. 21 • Irving Feldman
Suborned to bear false witness, he said to himself, If I don’t, someone else will. Whereupon he was someone else.Poetry
Ceiling and Time
No. 21 • Jeffrey Yang
8 / The stars inside preside / over time, for a centuryPoetry
The Lucky Couple
No. 21 • Charles Simic
This warm spring weather made us lazy / Sitting side by side on a park benchFiction
A Stormy Evening at the Buck Snort Restaurant
No. 21 • J. Robert Lennon
She has a memory of the world outside this place. There was a time when she thought she might be able to outrun whatever it was that has made her this way.Fiction
Yes
No. 21 • Elizabeth Gaffney
She felt the sort of panic that sometimes seized her when she stood by herself on a subway platform, alone: She had lost her baby, forgotten her on the train!Art
Seeing and Being Seen
No. 21 • Edward Carey
A dark fairy tale about our faces, our transience, and why we take down life and try to preserve it.Fiction
War, Blossoms
No. 21 • S. J. Naudé
The recently dispersed with their encumbering passports. To them everything is new; everything has to be discovered and experienced and lost from scratch.Order A Public Space
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