Issue 1: Inaugural Issue

On the Limits of Optimism

Lina Morawetz

I met a girl at a gallery opening
she was wearing a plaster.
She was wearing it on her chin
in order to tell the people: I'm growing a hair,
you know, am growing a hair underneath.
This was apparently an all real thing
I would not understand.

Such things happen.

Later when I was doing the dishes
a spoon fell in the slot between the sink
and the washing machine. The radio told me
that there were less blood donations
it was said to be not unusual simply because
the people had left the town for vacations.
They were heading to the countryside or abroad.
It was reported that on the Croatian island of Pag
the fall wind had thrown fish out of the sea.

When I removed my washing machine
I found a spoon wedged in dust.
The summer I had to move out of the flat
people did not leave for vacations and not
for the countryside either.
They had begun to stay in town.
The fact that the people did not leave and
spent their money on food
this is what the market woman told me:
How glad I am to see you!