Two poems, short fiction, and a novel

~
When the men arrived, finally, to haul the big table away, 
I ran my hand down the battered length of it, as if along
the flank of some exhausted workhorse, overcome
by a sudden rush of absurd remorse.
--From "Esposito & Son," a poem by Anna Scotti, The New Yorker (November 28, 2016), p. 38.

Before leaving, he explained his plan to the maid and the cook.  Buenos Aires is falling apart; I'm going to the ranch, he said.  They talked for hours, sitting at the kitchen table.  The cook had been to the ranch as often as Pereda, who had always said that the country was no place for a man like him, a cultivated family man, who wanted to make sure that his children got a good education.  His mental images of the ranch had blurred and faded, leaving only a house with a hole in the middle, an enormous, threatening tree, and a barn flickering with shadows that might have been rats.  Nevertheless, that night, as he drank tea in the kitchen, he told his employees that he had hardly any money left to pay them (it was all frozen in the bank--in other words, as good as lost) and the only solution he had come up with was to take them to the country, where at least they wouldn't be short of food, or so he hoped.  
--From "The Insufferable Gaucho," a short story by Roberto Bolaño, translated from the Spanish by Chris Andrews, published in The New Yorker (October 1, 2007) and in the short story collection The Insufferable Gaucho (New Directions, 2010), pp. 9-41.

In 1954 he began to train with the Ama, Japanese women diving in the tradition of their mothers and grandmothers and great-great-grandmothers, "sea women" seeking fish and pearls in the depths of the Pacific.  
--From "Sine of the Sea" (parts I-IV), fiction by Clare Boerigter, First Class Literary Magazine, November 28-December 2016.  A link at the bottom of the page will lead to the next segment.

I had been driving for less than an hour when I began to feel ill.  The burning in my side came back, but at first I decided not to give it any importance.  I became worried only when I realized that I no longer had the strength to hold onto the steering wheel.  In the space of a few minutes my head became heavy, the headlights grew dimmer; soon I even forgot that I was driving.  I had the impression, rather, of being at the sea, in the middle of the day.  
--From The Lost Daughter, a novel by Elena Ferrante, translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein (Europa Editions, 2008).

It it what it is; heart packed in cotton balls and stored
for winter, or like clothes that no longer fit but still might.  
--From "Ouroboros," a poem by Sonya Vatomsky, first published in Menacing Hedge (Spring 2015) and reprinted in her chapbook My Heart in Aspic (Porkbelly Press, 2015).