The city glitters
and in some dim light you, too, are sleeping.
From these heights
the moon’s surface is closer.
But, no –
no one knows
whether the air is swift or cold here,
whether this is a floating smoke of clouds
or the dust of companionship.
Is this the quivering wave of the final call
or …
Sign in to Granta.com.
‘The anglophone world, we have to infer, has run out of words for its own feelings.’
Daisy Hildyard on the wisdom of scarecrows.
‘What is the read receipt for?’
Lillian Fishman on texting, power and the ethics of leaving a friend on read.
‘Like pretty much everyone who uses the internet, I have seen many terrible things that I did not search for and that I cannot unsee.’
Rosanna McLaughlin on what the internet thinks she wants.
‘I have a pathological addiction to the internet, which I indulge with the excuse of making art. It rarely translates to anything good and mostly leaves me overstimulated and afraid.’
Paul Dalla Rosa on excess and the internet.
‘rumors of bees on speedwell, / no oxidative stress just / effortless pollination’
Two poems by Sylvia Legris.
‘In the end, the real world always finds a way to live up to rumor.’
Fiction by Jianan Qian, translated by Jianan Qian and Alyssa Asquith.
‘Finally! I thought. Now I get to work in a big factory. I was fifteen and a half years old. I was a child laborer.’
Xiao Hai on coming of age in the factories of Shenzhen, translated by Tony Hao.
‘Words only point to experience, they can’t replace it.’
Vanessa Onwuemezi and Colin Herd discuss UFOs, relation, and the search for an inner sense of home.
‘Jesus came walking across the lawn, a grin on his face. I waved. “Hi, Jesus.”’
