by Michelle Cacho-Negrete We were Poland. We were Romania. We were Ukraine We were Hungary. We were Russia. We arrived in New York with ragged clothes, a swirl of languages, and our babushkas and yarmulkas and kasha and borsch and pierogi and cozonac and palinka and our dreams and nightmares, and later, tattoos on our
by Thaddeus Rutkowski The first sign was a brownish-gray blur shooting across our floor. It went so fast we couldn’t tell if it was a living thing or just a trick of the eye—a shadow made by the batting of an eyelid. Over the next few days, however, the blur slowed down, as if the
by Andrew Sarewitz New Year’s Eve, 2013. Early, around 9:30 p.m., I sauntered into the bar in Hell’s Kitchen as if I belonged there—which I suppose I felt I did. My brother-in-crime and owner of the bar, Sasha, hugged me hello. With the crowd being far from overflowing, he was concerned the lack of cash-carrying
by Judy Bolton-Fasman I read the obituaries of those who have died in the pandemic, and say many of their names softly before I recite the five paragraphs of the Kaddish—the Jewish prayer of mourning. A new day, a new set of names. I make my way through the prayer’s chewy Aramaic, memorializing the lives
by Karol Nielsen It was a modestly priced one-bedroom in a charming townhouse near the Metropolitan Museum of Art and I was deeply in love, even though I could see all of its flaws. The baseboards didn’t line up with the floor. The oak parquet had dry rotted and squeaked. The ceiling rippled like the
by Alan Swyer Some of our greatest music was created in strange ways. A Ray Charles classic came to life when the manager of a theater feared that the audience would tear out the seats if Ray, who’d run out of material, didn’t take the stage again. Instructing his band to follow his lead, Ray
by Kimmo Rosenthal Everything comes alive when contradictions accumulate. —Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space …no such combination of scenery exists as the painter of genius may produce. —Edgar Allan Poe, The Domain of Arnheim René Magritte’s Domain of Arnheim René Magritte’s genius lies in his ability to transcend and subvert artistic convention in order
by Cari Oleskewicz Cora’s kayak is balanced on top of Andy’s compact car. From my seat on the passenger side, I watch its pointy yellow tip, imagining it flying off the roof like a javelin. This kayak has been a fixture at Andy’s house for the entire three-and-a-half years of our relationship. It is faded
by Robert Pope -1- When my family moved to Frankfurt, Germany in 1960, Dwight D. Eisenhower was still the president of the United States, and the memory of the war against the German Nazi government lingered in pockets of unrestored destruction scattered throughout the city. We lived in military housing, a duplex on the furthest