Magazine
A Public Space
No. 26
I still had the Piedmontese capital in my mind; the monarchic city
with its piazzas inhabited by scientists and kings, by politicians and by warriors
motionless in tired and solemn poses on their pedestals of stone, I still had in
mind all of the strange lyricism of its fateful geometric construction.
—Giorgio de Chirico
Table of Contents
Cities
Vale Lutetia
The suburbs of the avant-city appeared to me suddenly speckled with singing colors, papered with charming surprises.
Translated from the Italian by Stefania Heim
Fiction
Our Experience of Being Alive and Having to Breathe
Which is to say, a big struggle begat a little struggle begat a boy who dreamed of living in America, struggle free.
Fiction
Woman Sleeping
"Bodies are difficult," said the woman when the child finally slipped inside the dream.
Translated from the Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa
Fiction
San Juan
Exile had a way of provoking contempt. One lived far away because one couldn't live inside.
Translated from the Spanish by Suzanne Jill Levine
City-Building
American Townscape [1953]
A cheerful optimism and an expanding economy have fostered the idea that technology can be harnessed to overcome any difficulty.
Document
Juxtapositions
Art does not have to "work." It is. It's not created, necessarily, for the public to decide whether it "works" or not.
Letters
Public Access
I Had Been Meaning to Write
Stop the presses! I thought of a better word! Almost the right one!
Fiction
In a Deer Stand
It's a question of time. Sooner or later, somebody will show up.
Translated from the Danish by Misha Hoekstra
Fiction
Contract Work
And then what, they all say together, and repeat it again and again, and then what, and then what, and then what.
Public Assembly
Audience, Crowd, and State
There are people who are frightened by the very idea of being part of an audience.
Poetry
Missing File #1: Woolly Rhinoceros / Ancient Cavity Tooth
To give oneself is a way to say one’s self can be gifted, like the hollowed-out horn.
Poetry
For You I’ve Started Sleeping
if I loved you for your beauty? / there are worse reasons to love
Poetry
Epithalamion
That this is love’s profession, our scents / on pillows displace our alphabet to grass
Poetry
Amuse-Bouche
But each plate obliterates the last / until I no longer mourn the destroyed plate.
Poetry
The Covered-Up Clock
And, although inaudible, still they are calling you.
Translated from the Hungarian by Erika Mihálycsa
Poetry
Venus Surrender
I will love because it has been detected as the second / brightest octave to exist in the sky
Poetry
When the Other Man Asked Him Did He Pray
All those miles down the boulevard, numbers counting down by twos.
Fellow
Public Access
Meeting Points: Between and In Between Subject and Object
The articulation of a word dissolves, and the most carefully strung together sentence falls apart.
Fiction
Refugees
I still don’t know how we had come to this.
Translated from the Greek by N. C. Germanacos
Travel Diary
Journey Along the Sea Road
The human heart is more treacherous than these waters.
Translated from the Japanese by Meredith McKinney
Poetry
La Bête Noire
The animals of the zodiac do not determine destiny.
Translated from the French by Elizabeth Zuba with Maria Gilissen
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