Ange Mlinko

I

The Venetians, the Venetians –           you hear about the Venetians picking off the black grapes of Izmir           or seizing a ship bound for Egypt, to trigger a           war for Crete; grabbing the wrong rein in the king’s...

Mother Reilly’s Daughter! Trompe l’oeil Ale! Aphasic Skywalk! Night at the hub pub, microbrews and boutique pinots – In its throes, Does one ever hear the Mädchen cry from the woods at the edge of the            tarmac?

The artwork is meant to mute us, is it? Large-scale cibachromes, mobiles, canvases – A...

At some point they got off at Gelsenkirchen, which is on the same train line as Hanover, and while there, had their portraits taken. That’s all the sense I can make of this stopover on their way to the coast, where the ships were taking the faux Poles, the birchen people, to whatever hospitable continent, on tips circulating in the famine camps and steeple- lands. Rotted frames, rusted...

‘Dear Tenant,

Right before my husband left, he did me a good deed. He hung a heavy mirror I had bought at an estate sale, bevelled, gilt, uncommonly clear. It was as though I’d freed him to do what he neglects to do when chores entail … what? Fairness? This was a gift. It hangs above eye level, more to catch the light of the ceiling lamp than to reflect the faces of his...

Why should​ poets’ deaths carry more weight than those of others? David Markson’s litany of deaths, This Is Not a Novel, starts off with a poet’s death (Byron’s) and expands to commemorate, in laconic sentences and judicious fragments, the deaths (sprinkled with quotes and quirks) of novelists, painters, composers, philosophers. As it turns out, you’re not...