Otter Cove

By YEHUDIT BEN-ZVI HELLER

 

I took three stones from there:
one from the water
one from the sun
and a small one
to grow.

Co-translated by the poet and Stephen Clingman

 

Yehudit Ben-Zvi Heller is the author of Ha’isha Beme’il Sagol (The Woman in the Purple Coat), Kan Gam Bakayitz Hageshem Yored (Here, Even in the Summer It Rains), and Mehalekhet al Khut shel Mayim (Pacing on a Thread of Water).

Stephen Clingman is Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts. His most recent book is The Grammar of Identity: Transnational Fiction and the Nature of the Boundary.

Click here to purchase Issue 01

From the beginning, The Common has brought you transportive writing and exciting new voices. We are committed to supporting writers and maintaining free, unrestricted access to our website, but we can’t do it without you. Become an integral part of our global community of readers and writers by donating today. No amount is too small. Thank you!

Otter Cove

Related Posts

Book cover of Fifty Mothers

Mother is a Kind of Holding: Jenny Qi interviews Preeti Vangani

PREETI VANGANI
With vignettes, I could plumb its narrative arc to become a force propelling the book forward. It also felt haunting yet warm that the mothers kept reappearing throughout the life of this grief. That repetition created a chorus of voices that angers and despairs, yet cradles the speaker.

May 2026 Poetry Feature: Arielle Hebert, from Bottom Feeders

ARIELLE HEBERT
Home again at the water’s edge, / palms dancing in salt breeze. / I take a too-deep breath / and the air prickles my lungs / like an unfiltered cigarette. / Only the tourists are swimming, / coughing through the algal bloom, / eyes bloodshot and skin burning.

Book cover of Cece

Review of Cécé by Emmelie Prophète

SAM SPRATFORD
Uncle Frédo lies in the dark, water dripping through the sheet-metal roof. His American Dream crushed by the reality of existence as a non-white, non-citizen in the U.S., he returns to Haiti for the remainder of his life. He rarely speaks and is nearly always drunk. He spends his days in a dreamless twilight zone between sleep and wakefulness.