~
When her Alzheimer's was just beginning,
my mother had a suitor, a farmer
whose wife had died after a long illness, . . .
--From "Aloft," a poem by David Huddle, The Southern Review, Volume 44:4 (Autumn 2008), pp. 780-782. This poem was later reprinted in Blacksnake at the Family Reunion, a book of poems by David Huddle (LSU Press, 2012).
Driving into my old city yesterday
for the first visit in decades
every street sign whispered a story
from my only great war
my move here as a lone
21-year old, when by day three
my map of the city
lay shredded from reuse
and humidity and from
shaking it in hopes it would
rearrange into something familiar—
--From "Four a.m. and 40 Years Later, from an Eighteenth Floor Balcony, Downtown," a poem by Jessica Greenbaum, Plume, Issue 101 (January 2020).
One day God called the bat to him and gave him a basket to carry to the moon. The basket was filled with darkness, but God didn't tell him what it was. . . . The bat grew tired and stopped for a rest. He put down the basket and went off to find something to eat. While he was gone, other animals came along. . . . The dogs and wolves tried to pull [the darkness] out and play with it, but it slipped away between their teeth and slithered off. Just then, the bat returned. He opened the basket and found it empty. The other animals disappeared into the night. The bat flew off to try to recapture the darkness. He could see it everywhere, but he couldn't fit it back inside his basket, no matter how hard he tried. And this is why the bat sleeps all day and flies all night. He's still trying to catch the dark.
"Which part of the story was the part about Africa?" I wanted to know. I had asked my mother to tell me about Africa and instead she had told me about the bat. "It's all about Africa," my mother said, frowning. "Everything except the part about God."
--From Last Things, a novel by Jenny Offill (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999; Vintage Books/Random House, 2015).
I am nauseated by the odor of musty rugged jackets, wool, the tonics with which the women spritz their hair. Sitting on my suitcase I stare out the window, where the sunlight disappears into the poplars like when water closes over a cuttlefish.
Suddenly I think I see, standing up near the front of the bus, my old acquaintance Kamil, with whom I fell in love over the summer and then lost contact. That has to be him, I think, thrilled, squeezing myself and my suitcase towards him.
"Is it really you?" I ask, excited, grasping his leather jacket.
"Course it's me, honeycakes," responds this stranger as he eyes me up and down.
--From Accommodations, a novel by Wioletta Grzegorzewska (writing as Wioletta Greg), translated from the Polish by Jennifer Croft (Transit Books, 2019). Originally published as Stancje (W.A.B.: Poland, 2017). This is a follow-up to Swallowing Mercury, which is a beautiful, poetic little novel, also from Transit Books.
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