Scoundrel Time

The Aayrouni Olives Always Grow Best

Was it the bomb or the daughter that came first? The vow and a promise to fig trees and ripe lemons, brown pools of sugared dates, my father’s eyes burned with memories of air raids. A ceasefire buried in...

Three Poems by C. Dale Young

The Grief of Achilles Very few dispute that his mother dipped him in the River Styx to ensure immortality, the spot on his heel she held left vulnerable and soft. Nor do many dispute Achilles as an outstanding...

You have a DNA match!

“Each match holds a different part of your story. Compare aspects like ethnicity, common ancestors, and communities to start assembling your family’s bigger picture.” Overnight in my inbox they arrive stacked...

Letters from Missile Alert Area, Ramat-Gan West

October 7, 2023 Dear Friend, That moment when you realize how naïve you’ve been, that it won’t make a difference–your political convictions or your desire for co-existence; your weekly (sometimes...

I’m Looking for Humans

I want to tell you about my street. It is a one way, winding road lined with Jerusalem sandstone apartment blocks, many old, holding many accumulated stories. On a normal day there is the sound of children...

How to Become American

Watch Friends. Try saying “kʰẽə̃nt” instead of “kɑːnt”.  At dawn, draw a new Rangoli pattern on the threshold of your home in Old Hyderabad. Dry rice flour on damp terracotta tile, it shoots...

FIVE AM ON THE DOT

During the nightshift at the supermarket, we have a forty-five-minute break, which we take whenever. We’re free to split it, to have a thirty-minute break, and save fifteen for when the store reopens, allowed outside...

Chat GPT Prompt for Great American Novel

I am going to describe the book I want you to write. If at any point in this chain of commands you get stuck, save your output and return to me the sentence in these instructions where you broke the book. I will fix the...

Theater of War

A small but important element of Russia’s attempt to rob Ukraine of its sovereignty is the theft of Ukrainian art. Earlier this year, the New York Times reported on the coordinated Russian looting of thousands of art...

What Was Sent

Letters and cards of sympathy come in first. They are sent by individuals, whole schools, churches, youth groups, Brownie troops, the town’s sister city in Estonia. They are thinking of the families, the letter writers...

The Right Shoes

This couldn’t be happening, but it was. Diana met her manager’s gaze, then looked down. The issue was the application she maintained, which was outdated. The technology would no longer be supported. “Your position is...

Pixanes

Translation from the Spanish by Tyler Gebauer The building super told me that a pair of white men, looking like businessmen and speaking with upper-class accents, had shown up at the boarding house late one afternoon...

Four Poems by Ellen June Wright

Angola Angela, from the African region known as Angola, grower of figs, keeper of pigs, recorded as Angelo. Watched over by angels for whom she was named, survived the crossing in a ship’s bowels, survived pirates and...

Ned Rorem (1923-2022)

“Do not go, Gentile, into that good night,” I murmured, reading of Ned Rorem’s recent death. It’s hard to imagine what a shock, in 1966, when religion, ethnicity, and sexual orientation were still taboo, the self...