The dead have the whole city to think with
the fla-vor-ice tube the whole tongue cherry red.
Trapped below the lake, the slow sharp breath,
the mottle, the dogskin, the fiberglass, the uncertain
waterlight’s advance. This is the uniformity
we imagined the future with. This is a future that came late
to the upper Midwest, but when it did, set gray panels
in tan brick and chirred with the whippoorwill
trapped in the quivering Walgreen’s …
“Make a left at the second park,
Because you will come across two parks;
The first one is smaller, and there’s a little courtyard in the middle
With an old …
In the ocean with my brother, I wonder
if I should make my same old walking
into the ocean joke. “Whelp. I guess
I’ll just keep going. Goodbye.” …
The air above this man-made
reservoir turns violent
pink each afternoon. This is a tune
on a guitar I can barely
play. I’ve built
a forest of grief and you
aren’t allowed …
Our house leaned and pitched in strong winds. The tin roof
a watering can for black snakes wintering in the attic;
the kitchen ceiling had one-tile-in-from-the-wall painted
for ten years, …
Sundays my father made us chorizo
we still begged to skip church
four bad kids in line for communion,
recanting silence
seeing the backs of our neighbors, the lint on …
by Gregory Orr There aren’t that many pages left. I’m getting nervous; what if the author means to surprise me by leaving the last twenty blank? Now all sounds disturb me:
by Li-Young Lee While the long grain is softening in the water, gurgling over a low stove flame, before the salted Winter Vegetable is …
My knee-high lace-up moccasins made me forget the nights my mother was lost in vodka. I walked deep in the gunk of Hollywood. The stretch of sidewalk glittered. Vendors sold …
by Mary Oliver Hello, sun in my face. Hello, you who make the morning and spread it over the fields and into the faces of the tulips and the nodding morning …
