Growing up, there were always two laws.My mother, the greater, the greatestWho made enemies if necessary outOf the trashman or the paperboy.Queen without her court and details,Commands so precise, you could notFollow if you were not one of her students;If you did not know her nobility you mightThink she was crazy in her house dressStanding…
It must seem an odd—even disqualifying—admission in an editor, even a guest editor, but I don’t really like to judge fiction, though that hasn’t stopped me doing so for Ploughshares, or in the past (not least each winter when I, along with my colleagues, read several hundred MFA applications). On reflection, my unease is less…
During my first weeks as managing editor for Ploughshares, Seamus Heaney’s transatlantic writing issue, 6/1, arrived from the printer, ready to be bagged and mailed to subscribers. Michael Mazur’s monotype portrait of Heaney had appeared on the cover of 5/3, accompanying an interview by issue editor Jim Randall, just as Heaney began his decades of…
When the sun broke up the thunderheads, and dissonance was consigned to its proper place, the world was at once foreign and known to me, that was shame leaving the body. I had lived my life from small relief to small relief, like a boy pulling a thorn from his foot. Wet and glistening, twisting…
Ever since the California economy collapsed, people have been coming to our street at night and going through the trash. That sounds worse than it is—I guess if it’s recyclable, then it’s not really trash. They sort through the blue bins that were wheeled out to the curb during the day by the gardening crews….
When 600 milligrams of mifepristone is introduced into the bloodstream, it binds to progesterone receptors without activating the receptors, acting as an antiprogestin. Progesterone is fundamentally important for sustaining an early pregnancy. Try again—in English. When mifepristone is introduced into the bloodstream of a pregnant woman, it cuts off the supply of progesterone to the…
Thirty-six years till my mother is bornThe perfumes she worewhen she was young whatever happened The bottom of her jewelry drawercalls and calls as I run her through her first school playShe doesn’t understand Stroke my stomach mother till I understand Why is the movie too advanced?Why do we have to stay home and chase…
The spring I turned ten my father told me we’d be spending a month in Maine with old friends. “They have a daughter who’s a little older than you, Josh. And it’s time I taught you to fish,” he said. “You remember the Izelins, don’t you?” I didn’t, not exactly. They’d stayed with us for…
Blackbird called Redwinged and I both startle when I stand and turn. Bird expertly swerves, flies on; but I spend a few thousand mind…
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