If you ever want to feel real,
even important,
cry on the street.
Sob. Heave. Bum a half-smoked cigarette.
Drunks rally around your wet eyes:
A woman brings a paper cup of soft serve.
A man in a floral shirt puts his hand on your shoulder
to deliver queer advice:
“You’re just going through it, hun.
We’re all always going through it.”
Kevin Hautigan is from South Florida and lives in New York City. He graduated from Georgetown University.
PETER FILKINS
All night long / it bucked and surged / past the window // and my breath / fogging the glass, / a yellow moon // headlamping / through mist, / the tunnel of sleep, // towns racing past. // Down at the crossroads, / warning in the bell, / beams lowering // on traffic before / the whomp of air / followed by the zing // and clack-ety-clack / of hammered rails
THE COMMON
The Common published over 175 stories, essays, poems, interviews, and features online and in print in 2024. Browse a list of the ten most-read pieces of 2024 to get a taste of what left an impact on readers.
OLGA ZILBERBOURG
Wilson’s novel, too, is a carnivalesque feast. It offers a constant spectacle of death and renewal in exuberant, entirely over-the-top settings. Most characters have a tragic death story attached to them. There are deaths in car crashes, fires, several forms of cancer, and an epileptic girl who dies from an attack of epilepsy that happens when she’s in prison.
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