On the Shores of Baileys Harbor | The Common
BEN TAMBURRI The beaches of Baileys Harbor are for birds, too pebbly and coarse to relax on. The water is cold, and the waves break at your ankles.| The Common
TERAO TETSUYA I remembered reading in a magazine about “cabin fever,” a phenomenon common in high-altitude areas during harsh winters. When forced to stay in the same small indoor space for an extended period, people will develop abnormally intense feelings toward each other, such as disdain, jealousy, hatred, or irrational love. America was geographically vast, but in our first-generation immigrant psyche, it might as well be as narrow as a cabin in a snowstorm.| The Common
MICHAEL JEROME PLUNKETT Years later, while transferring units in the Marine Corps, I kept noticing the strange dissonance between the bureaucratic language of my written orders and the very human Marines drafting them. That tension—between voice and duty, between past and present—helped me imagine the men doing the cleanup in Verdun. I started writing fake reports. Then the reports became a story. Then the story became a novel.| The Common
ILAN STAVANS If he had a scientific mind, he also had a fretful, adventurous spirit. He was convinced, as his letters attest time and again, that every experience, regardless of how mysterious it might be, ought to be described in words. He loved to take chances, even if they led to a dead end.| The Common
LIZA KATZ DUNCAN ”The earth, as blue and green / as a child’s drawing of the earth— // is this what disaster looks like? My love, think / of the dragonflies, each migratory trip / spanning generations. Imagine // that kind of faith: to leave a place behind / knowing a part of you will find its way back, / instinct outweighing desire.| The Common
SIMONÉ GOLDSCHMIDT-LECHNER The paths are drawn on the ground before the borders appear. We buried water and supplies there, made this barren ground walkable, and moved from the north to the south until we reached the clashing oceans, green and blue. You think about the calloused soles of our feet, we think about our siblings:| The Common
BEN TAMBURRI The beaches of Baileys Harbor are for birds, too pebbly and coarse to relax on. The water is cold, and the waves break at your ankles.| The Common
Fiction, essays, poetry, and more.| The Common
LISA ASAGI "We and the whales, / and everyone else, / sleep and wake in bodies / that have a bit of everything / that has ever lived. Forests, oceans, / horse shoe crabs, horses, / orange trees in countless of glasses of juice, / lichen that once grew / on the cliffsides of our ancestors, / deepseated rhizomes, and stars. // Even stars are made| The Common
ELI RODRIGUEZ FIELDER The gods must have been giant children squeezing drip sandcastles from their palms, back when this land was at the edge of a sea. This used to be a mouth, I say. It feels impossible that this peculiar landscape should suddenly emerge among farms and Dairy Queens.| The Common
MONIKA CASSEL The speaker’s father, deployed to Vietnam in 1970 (the year of the dog in the lunar calendar) becomes a central figure between these grieving, unsilenceable women, but he is reticent, seen most vividly when the speaker, a child, watches as he sleeps to make sure he doesn’t choke on his tongue from seizures resulting from his service.| The Common
PHOEBE HYDE You say you stepped over my trip line of a story by accident? You were just scanning the shelves or pages or screen for a little something light and didn’t think you’d be rattled by a little violence? You just chose badly, or got bum advice, hit a bad patch, took a wrong turn, missed the exit and didn’t mean to come out here| The Common
JIM SHEPARD And Shep looked only a little chagrined, like someone had asked why he had never become an acrobat, and allowed as how he was sure it was very impressive, given how many distinguished people had praised it, but that it was not the kind of thing someone with his background could judge.| The Common
DIANE MEHTA and PHILLIS LEVIN This conversation took place over the course of weeks—over daily phone calls and long emails, meals when they were in the same place, and a weekend in the Connecticut countryside. The poets share what they draw from each other’s work, and the work of others, exploring the pleasures of language, geometric movement, and formal constraint.| The Common
MADELINE SIMMS After midnight, cottonwoods are inconsequential teeth, ripped from the ground by the Mississippi River. An elm snaps like a bird’s neck: an egret. The current betrays every fluttering heart and rages on. A rock becomes sepulcher to the uprooted nest. The river could be less cruel, the winter, more forgiving.| The Common
LENA MOSES-SCHMITT I think sometimes movement can be used to show how thought is made manifest outside the body. And also just more generally: when you leave the house, when you are walking, your thoughts change because your environment changes, and your body is changing. Moving is a way of your consciousness interacting with the world.| The Common
MARIAH RIGG speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her story “Target Island,” which appears in The Common’s spring issue.| The Common
TED CONOVER It seemed to me the most mysterious, imaginative thing I had ever come across. The narrator, in language as simple as the poem I had read, describes life in a small community where... There are statues of vegetables and the sun shines a different color every day.| The Common
Weekly Writes Summer 2025 kicks off on July 14 to keep you motivated and meeting your writing goals all through the late-summer heat! Sign up now!| The Common
Who will be the writers and publishers of tomorrow? At The Common, we are committed to building literary futures. Gifts from donors like you maintain our many author-centric programs and allow us to keep publishing| The Common
By CRUZ ALEJANDRA LUCAS JUÁREZ| thecommononline.org
By CRUZ ALEJANDRA LUCAS JUÁREZ| thecommononline.org
