COVER FEATURE
Illness & Literature
“Death is its own invention with its own effect and its own observances. You regard the failing body. The body is the vessel.”– “Closer to Where You Will Find Him,” by Michael Mattes
“I say to myself, ‘If I can write, I can get better.’ And suddenly, that is what I want. I want to get better. I will not accept myself in this condition, sick and disabled.” – “The First Day,” by Goli Taraghi
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Photo: Claus Grünstäudl/Unsplash Maybe it will be like the end of a yearwhen you find yourself alone in a deserted roomlike a statue at the end of a public garden pathfaced with bare autumn after the... -
Photo: Erkan Utu/Pexels What I see upon entering a hospital room in St. Paul at dawn. My nieces asleep, one on a cot against the wall, the other in a chair beside the bed, holding my sister’... -
Photo: Michael Gaida/Pixabay Following a hysterectomy, a woman is drawn to the gothic ambience of a stone statuary garden at her lover’s family’s home. My third sleepless night in t... -
For “El Negro” Fontanarrosa, for his lawless fat men . . . A 2050 public health campaign goes too far, resulting in allergy-free municipalities, fines for obesity, and exile to the Isle of the Si... -
The doctor knows about my love of writing. She brings me a handful of white paper and some sharp pencils. I sit at the table and am frozen. What should I write? How? Where should I begin?...
