We watch the swimmers
with our feet splayed upon the dashboard.
We will never be younger than we are now—
conjuring what we can from August heat,
all these nights of little sleep,
our bodies shifting to find the breeze.
“August, West Bay” by Holly Wren Spaulding Read More »
O Cordelia, my name is Lear. My name is
Primo Levi. I sit naked between
The open window and the dark TV screen,
My hands and sex bathed in the fires of the evening.
“Dark TV Screen,” by Charles Simic Read More »
The eminent scholar “took the bull by the horns,”
substituting urban black speech for the voice
of an illiterate cop in Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazusae.
And we sat there.
Dana’s purple eyes deepened, Becky
twitched to her hairtips
and Janice in her red shoes
scribbled he’s an arschlock; do you want
to leave? He’s a model product of his
education, I scribbled back; we can learn from this.
“Arrow,” by Rita Dove Read More »
The Holy Ghost was browsing in his or her library
one day in the future, unaccountably bored,
oddly querulous, vaguely wanting something that would be
quietly unfamiliar. “It doesn’t have to be great,”
said the Holy Ghost with the faintest note of exasperation
in his or her voice, “just so long as it has its own special character.”
“Why the HG is Holy,” by Mark Halliday Read More »
When I ran barefoot in our gardens by the river Nieviaza
Something was there, that I didn’t then try to name:
Everywhere, between the trunks of linden trees, on the sunny side of the lawn,
on the path by the orchard,
A Presence resided, I didn’t know whose.
“Presence” by Czesław Miłosz Read More »
The moon-stirred volume of ocean sighed
Coconut tanning-oil and frozen custard.
Birch horses and dragons rode the merry-go-round.
A splinter of the herringbone cedar boardwalk
Might be teased from your finger with a steel
Needle purged of germs by a match’s flame.
“The Material,” by Robert Pinsky Read More »
Is this the kitchen where she worked and thought
Is that the loft where their bodies fell
into each other The nail where the mirror
hung the shelf where her college books
eyed her aslant
Those stairs would her bare feet have felt?
“The Painter’s House,” by Adrienne Rich Read More »
As my skin shows
its dry pitting, she opens like a small
pale flower on the tip of a cactus
“35/10,” by Sharon Olds Read More »
could be a documentary or could be someone’s art school final
but basically we make a dope ass trailer with a hundred black children
smiling into the camera & the last shot is the wide mouth of a pistol.
“A History of Violence in the Hood,” by Danez Smith Read More »
Nothing’s perfect. Only
the first summer day I dipped
my son’s tiny toes
into the cold careless gray
of Lake Michigan.
“Nothing’s Perfect. Only,” by Laura Kasischke Read More »
