Issue 153

Winter & Spring 2018

Image from Territory

Poetry Frédérique Guétat-Liviani Poetry Frédérique Guétat-Liviani

the world

from espèce

Translated by Nathanaël

[ Note: “The world” is extracted from the “termes” (terms) series, in which each poem evolves from a single substantive to its termination. ]

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Fiction Driss Ksikes Fiction Driss Ksikes

The Honey Soldier

Translated from the French by Matthew Brauer.

The main thoroughfare, lorded over by bulky state buildings and sometimes overrun with councilors and senators, is almost deserted. The square, usually swarming with job-seekers, punctuated by the occasional beatings of protesters, is without commotion, quiet as a Sunday.

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Fiction Christian Winn Fiction Christian Winn

The Evidence of Reno

In my pocket the index finger feels like a bent piece of stale licorice across my warm palm. The finger is Thomas’s dead father’s finger, and Thomas and I are in Reno trying not to go broke.

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Fiction Brandi Wells Fiction Brandi Wells

Not Mildred

John has worried for years that something would happen. A stranger or even a neighbor might break into his house and steal from him, harm him or his wife and child. It is a man’s responsibility to protect his family.

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Fiction Thirii Myo Kyaw Myint Fiction Thirii Myo Kyaw Myint

The Women of the House

They woke me at dawn and bathed me, the women of the house. We called them women, but they were only girls. Sturdy, broad-shouldered girls with long, muscular arms that hung almost to their knees. The women were short, barely my height, though I was then in green skirts.

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Nonfiction Debra Di Blasi Nonfiction Debra Di Blasi

Five Descants from a Violent Species

“There is no object to life. To nature nothing matters but the continuation of the species.”
—W. Somerset Maugham

1.

Farm objects, animate or not, pass season to season without stagger, like a deity the animals must have thought my father, moving yearlong from hay pasture to crop field…

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Poetry Daniel Borzutzky Poetry Daniel Borzutzky

Lake Michigan, Scene 9

Do you want to see the waters that in the sunlight reminded Simone de Beauvoir of silk and
flashing diamonds

Do you want to see the golden sand of Lake Michigan

Do you want to see the waters that are like silk and flashing diamonds

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Poetry Daniel Borzutzky Poetry Daniel Borzutzky

Lake Michigan, Scene 11

The authoritative bodies play a game with the prisoners

It’s called “You’re Dead!”

When they play this game they speak in a voice appropriate for children or animals

Here is a body they imported from Guadalajara

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Poetry Duy Doan Poetry Duy Doan

Poem with a Rat in It

If you put salt on a slug, it dies. If you put sugar on it, it dies.
Only the birds are God-made for sure. With insects it’s hard to tell.

Every city-dweller is a chain-smoker. Every automobile
a license to kill. Car-carrying ocean vessels transport heavy cargo

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Poetry Duy Doan Poetry Duy Doan

The Cowboy

A cowboy tipped his hat at my mother, once. I'd never

seen that before. Something almost understanding

in his demeanor. Not at all the regard of others like him—

that steady gaze, less like watching a blue jay

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Poetry Frédérique Guétat-Liviani Poetry Frédérique Guétat-Liviani

saint marcel

from espèce

Translated by Nathanaël

[ Note: “Saint-marcel” comes from “fluides” (fluids), a series of poems that follows the redirected coastal river, the Huveaune, which originates in the massif of Sainte Baume and empties at Marseille. Its polluted waters are redirected away from the beaches in the vicinity of its mouth and emptied into the Cortiou Calanque. ]

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Poetry Tracy K. Smith Poetry Tracy K. Smith

Driving to Ottawa

More and more now we slip

Into this tone of voice, the hush

Of people talking about someone

Who has just died, only

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Poetry Tracy K. Smith Poetry Tracy K. Smith

Beatific

I watch him bob across the intersection,
Squat legs bowed in black sweatpants.

I watch him smile at nobody, at our traffic
Stopped to accommodate his slow going.

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Poetry Tracy K. Smith Poetry Tracy K. Smith

Charity

She is like a squat old machine,

Off-kilter but still chugging along

The uphill stretch of sidewalk

On Harrison Street, handbag slung

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Fiction Kristen Arnett Fiction Kristen Arnett

Suggestible Hauntings

The first thing you’ll discover about the job is that you hate travel-sized soaps. It’s not dislike you feel, but an actual loathing for those cheap plastic packages, miniaturized openings clogged with off-white gunk.

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