On a factory floor I felt for my keys. It was eight o’clock by the clock on the stall. (I meant to write wall) The tiles were one foot by one foot and sea foam green spoke the little shroud over the letters above the drill room door. Once it was useful to think of…
Because my son is as old as the stars Because I have no blessings Because I hold tangerines like orange tennis balls Because I sit alone and welcome morning across the unshaved jaws of my lawn Because the houses on my street sleep like turtles Because the proper weight of beauty was her eyes last…
There is a moment in every sail, whether you’re in a ten-foot dinghy or in a fifty-foot-plus cruiser, when the physics of wind and water catch hold of you. You can feel it in the lift of the boat against your back and in the way the muscles of your legs involuntarily tighten to compensate…
We thought we were onto something new. We loved doing it in the out-of-doors, thought ourselves pioneers: the first to sneak off into the darkness, unzip the fly, to feel a breeze on the back of our necks, to open our mouths, our hearts, his heart. We were partial to certain places: the park, the…
I can turn the space of him over in my hands. See if it comesapart, if it’s permeable. Does it keep time, shrink, dissolve on flesh. Does it bounce. Can I back that thing up. Can I see if it stands, if it cutscorrectly. If it can clothe me. If I can I swallow it. …
Reprinted from Issue 3 of Ploughshares, Winter 1972. (guest edited by James Randall) Richard Yates was born in Yonkers, New York, in 1926. He graduated from the Avon School in 1944, served in the last years of World War II, and until 1952 worked at a variety of jobs, ranging from newspaper rewrite man to…
I knew I was back in New York when I saw children walking to school with books open in their hands. I’d lived away for fifteen years. Now down the streets of Brooklyn they drifted, novels spread wide between their palms, the actual world comprising a mere running margin of asphalt and high-heeled shoes and…
We live alone together except for five cats, yet sometimes the only way to be truly alone is to run away together. Away from the computer, e-mail, Facebook, the cell phone, the land line, meetings, the endless list of things to be done— that no matter how many I cross off, keeps growing so that…
Since 1971, Ploughshares has been committed to promoting the work of up-and-coming writers. In the spirit of the magazine’s founding mission, the Emerging Writer’s Contest honors work by authors who are just beginning to publish and have yet to receive widespread recognition. The contest was limited to fiction this year. Next year, we will be…
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