Why can't someone just clone me so one of me could live in a library and read and the other me...well maybe there could be 3 of me so at least 2 could read and then maybe those 2 could get through a 1/10th of what I want to read and write.

A magazine of literature, politics, and culture, n+1 brings you the best essays by unknown writers – the unpublished and unpublishable fiction of major figures – and politics from the fringe to the mainstream, with an eye for the new idea, the impossible vision, the remarkable work of art.

Don't miss "Money" by Keith Gessen.

Translated Body
by Sandra Linville-Thomas

Ivory
Jade
Carnelian
or
Transparent rhino tusk

The Chinese woman
unwrapped the small,
impenetrable figure
and pointed to
the head
neck
arms
breasts
stomach

Shielded in her raiment
she cradled the doll
that translated her body,
and defended from probing hands.

She showed the doctor the location
of her affliction.

At times, a servant conveyed
the figure to the doctor
and tapped the place of the pain
for her.

When the mother died, she passed the figure
to her daughter
who presented her own pain
expecting the doctor’s answers to her ache.

A mystery, he said.

Away from the doctor,
the daughter caressed the surrogate mother
and pointed out her pain to herself,
honoring the legacy
in the transparent rhino tusk.

If I keep a green bough in my heart, the singing bird will come.
Chinese Proverb