The Thing Itself by Barbara Cully In any case, the idea of sleep, for long moments solid and specific, blocked off the thing itself. In the situation of the red poppies being there, and me desiring them, as if there was some depth I was looking for— sacramental as one knows it in the more selfless actions— the meaning of gift. Or following [...]
The Forgotten Dialect Of The Heart by Jack Gilbert How astonishing it is that language can almost mean, and frightening that it does not quite. Love, we say, God, we say, Rome and Michiko, we write, and the words get it all wrong. We say bread and it means according to which nation. French has [...]
The Hand by Mary Ruefle The teacher asks a question. You know the answer, you suspect you are the only one in the classroom who knows the answer, because the person in question is yourself, and on that you are the greatest living authority, but you don’t raise your hand. You raise the top of [...]
Everything Good Between Men and Women By C. D. Wright has been written in mud and butter and barbecue sauce. The walls and the floors used to be gorgeous. The socks off-white and a near match. The quince with fire blight but we get two pints of jelly in the end. Long walks strengthen the [...]
In a Country by Larry Levis My love and I are inventing a country, which we can already see taking shape, as if wheels were passing through yellow mud. But there is a prob- lem: if we put a river in the country, it will thaw and begin flooding. If we put the river on [...]
The Oldest Garden in the World by Elizabeth Willis Something drives out from the fate I was hungry for. A body that fulfills its face carries into day what fades behind it. In Natural History Sophocles loved Asphodel, but Asphodel loved William Carlos Williams as hyacinth loved France, and honey loves a toothache. Is that [...]
Chaplinesque by Hart Crane We make our meek adjustments, Contented with such random consolations As the wind deposits In slithered and too ample pockets. For we can still love the world, who find A famished kitten on the step, and know Recesses for it from the fury of the street, Or warm torn elbow coverts. [...]
The Power by Paul Farley Forget all of that end-of-the pier palm-reading stuff. Picture a seaside town in your head. Start from its salt-wrack-rotten smells and raise the lid of the world to change the light, then go as far as you want: the ornament of a promenade, the brilliant greys of gulls, the [...]
Alcove by John Ashbery Is it possible that spring could be once more approaching? We forget each time what a mindless business it is, porous like sleep, adrift on the horizon, refusing to take sides, “mugwump of the final hour,” lest an agenda—horrors!—be imputed to it, and the whole point of its being spring [...]
Ash Ode by Dean Young When I saw you ahead I ran two blocks shouting your name then realizing it wasn’t you but some alarmed pretender, I went on running, shouting now into the sky, continuing your fame and luster. Since I’ve been incinerated, I’ve oft returned to this thought, that all things loved are [...]
