A poem by Shiyang Su; short stories by Alejandro Zambra, Rachel Kushner, and Miranda July; and a novel by Alexandra Chang

~
In the previous life, you and I were the last line
of an old Chinese myth: A ransacked empire. 
A black jade swallowed by the young lapidary . . . 
—From "Love Letter," a poem by Shiyang Su, Diode Poetry Journal, Vol. 17, No. 2 (Summer 2024).

I didn't want to go to New York, because I didn't want to cut my hair. And my father didn't read my "Letter to My Father." 
          "I'll read it next time I feel like crying," he told me. "Except I never feel like crying." 
—From "Skyscrapers," a short story by Alejandro Zambra, translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell, The New Yorker (August 22, 2022), pp. 54-59.

George said that was fine. He had always picked people up. It was like they knew. They understood that they could just walk up to his car window at a stoplight. Crutch up to the window. 
          The man was impressively nimble getting in the car with the crutches and the missing half leg and his beer bottle, as though he'd been managing this way for some time. 
          The gates went up. As they set off, the man raised his bottle in a toast, the turbulence of the uneven train tracks sloshing beer onto the car seat. George did not care, had never cared about anything material and certainly not this Ford Crown Victoria, which looked like an undercover cop car.
—From "A King Alone" by Rachel Kushner, The New Yorker (July 11 & 18, 2022), pp. pp. 50-61.

If I were a more self-assured person I would not have volunteered to give up my seat on an overcrowded flight, would not have been upgraded to first class, would not have been seated beside him. This was my reward for being a pushover. He slept for the first hour, and it was startling to see such a famous face look so vulnerable and empty. 
—From "Roy Spivey," a short story by Miranda July, The New Yorker (June 11 & 18, 2007). It was reprinted in the issue from August 29, 2022, pp. 56-59.

People think I'm smaller than I am. For example, my feet. In fact, I wear size 8.5 or 9. According to Google, these are the most common sizes for American women. Average is good, I reason. It means that wherever I end up in this country it will be easy to find someone whose shoes I can borrow. 
—From Days of Distraction, a novel by Alexandra Chang (Ecco, 2020).