for the black women who died for motherhood
how long has my womb ached
to carry half of my laugh gently
New work from our contributors: ARVIND KRISHNA MEHROTRA, DAVID LEHMAN, and MATT DONOVAN.
Arvind Krishna Mehrotra | “The Walk”
David Lehman | “Just a Couple of Mugs”
Matt Donovan | “Portrait of America as a Philadelphia Derringer Abraham Lincoln Assassination Box Set Replica”
The Walk
By Arvind Krishna Mehrotra
In a tree hollow like a cave mouth,
in which you and your partner
selfied yourselves, is a trash bag
oozing trash juice.
New poems from our contributors JORDAN HONEYBLUE, ROBERT WOOD LYNN, BENJAMIN PALOFF, and LYNNE THOMPSON.
Table of Contents:
Jordan Honeyblue | free it.
Robert Wood Lynn | Peepers in February
Benjamin Paloff | Of Vanity
Lynne Thompson | Paradise: 579
I ask
Half-awake
Is poetry possible
At the moment history stirs
Once its steps
Reverberate through every heart?
— From “Can there be poetry after” by Anastasia Afanasieva, translated by Kevin Vaughn and Maria Khotimsky
With the current Russian invasion of Ukraine, we at The Common have been reflecting on the powerful words of many Ukrainian poets who have appeared in our pages. In recent years their work has been rooted in conflict, as the country struggled first with self-determination and later with the Russian annexation of Crimea and, since 2014, with a Russian-incited war in the East. This focus lends a feeling of prescience and timeliness to their work now, even though most of these poems are not new. We hope you’ll make time to read and reflect on the work of these poets, as we all keep Ukraine and the Ukrainian people in our thoughts.
Unincorporated Arapahoe County, Colorado
Through mantle, earth, gender, air
through false stories and true
undistracted by pectin, pucker, time
scale, sugar, seed, dripped rainbow of
oil, prism, crushed berry residue,
om of home, acid, oxygen song—
I grip jelly jars to my eyes
mock binocular my way to You—
New work from our contributors: MARK KYUNGSOO BIAS, SARA MUNJACK, and DANIEL TOBIN
Table of Contents:
Mark Kyungsoo Bias | Visitor
| Meeting My Mother
Sara Munjack | Friendship Talk after Love-lives
Daniel Tobin | The Door
| Prayer in Passing
Poem by IMMANUEL MIFSUD
Translated from the Maltese by RUTH WARD and IMMANUEL MIFSUD
Poem appears in both Maltese and English below.
Translator’s Note
The Poem
Malta is a country caught in the crosscurrents: between North Africa and continental Europe; between insularity and a constructive role on the world stage; between prehistoric ruins and the blockchain. Mifsud is the voice of Malta, reflecting the archipelago in its richness, complexity, and contradictions. His is the voice through which the margins question the center; myths of progress are challenged; and the ancient interrogates the present, as in “Ġgantija II.”
The Ġgantija (“Giantess”) temples of Gozo were built during the Neolithic and are thought to be more than 5,500 years old, older than the pyramids of Egypt. They were erected by a people who worshipped a mother figure, a goddess. Awareness of intergenerationality and the unbroken cycles of life takes on a peculiar intensity when all that you have ever been surrounds all that you are in the present — and all you might aspire to become. It is comforting; it is confining. “Ġgantija II” was commissioned for an interdisciplinary event and an excerpt from it, in the Maltese, has been incorporated into a public sculpture on the island of Gozo.
Poems by AUSTIN SEGREST, from The Groom.
Table of Contents:
• The Groom
• After Caravaggio
• Revision
• Raptures
New poems by our contributors: MADELEINE MORI, G. C. WALDREP, ELLEN DORÉ WATSON, and ROBERT FANNING.
Table of Contents:
Madeleine Mori | Marrow
G. C. Waldrep | Rereading “Corson’s Inlet” at the Glendale Methodist Cemetery
Ellen Doré Watson | In Which I’m Not Allowed to Lie
Robert Fanning | Inarticulata
.