1991. A summer storm blows up the coast of Delaware, rearranging the tide on Rehoboth Beach. My husband’s parents take our baby daughter inside, into the house they’ve rented for the week, a box of windows resting on stilts. Released from responsibility, from adulthood, the two of us run into the ocean and give ourselves…
Cohen Awards Each year, we honor the best poem and short story published in Ploughshares with the Cohen Awards, which are wholly sponsored by our longtime patrons Denise and Mel Cohen. Finalists are nominated by staff editors, and the winners—each of whom receives a cash prize of $600—are selected by our advisory editors. The 2009…
rain frog thorn bug tent bat along a broken mosaic a spongy ever-dwindling path soaring trees woody buttresses their massive twisted fins lofty crowns shoulder to shoulder climbing lime-green vines restless palms one…
Tommy, when he was alive and could speak clearly without spit gathering in a big drip at his chin, would kiss Dee’s nose and warn her not to waste her time trying to figure it out, why it was so big. “Just love the nose,” Tommy’d say. “Love it and love the lips the same….
Alright, I’ll tell you the weirdo dream I had, but before I unwind that yarn, let’s twist our common thread. Like you, I stare plumb through the wall sometimes, because I’m thinking of a tree and a little tenant house beside it, and you-know-who on the stone step watching as I pretend I’m a butterfly…
Is the sleeve of that racist century as wrought or gold-chained as Henry VIII’s who strolls in and says I’m what matters, intestines sagging, the regal spittle bound to stick on dog fur? That’s where…
for Memory and Oxford “Apart from her roles as wife and mother, Doris did not play a large part in the stories of Greek mythology.” —anonymous online source She was a type, all right, an Okie from her daddy’s side, when she met Nereus, maybe even a little flashy looking, the bright…
after James Agee that couple on the road could no more slow their hearts, slough their fear than could you doff your privilege, un- lace the corset of skin that cuts you to the quick so here you are in the thick of it the sun-bleached air the hard-scrabble beauty of…
What I see in one eye and not the other. A moon that slices away at the dark. The past and what’s coming. Unlike the little hunchbacked shrew hopping mindless across the road. Or crickets, eating anything in their path, gardens, grass, each other. We’re different. We anticipate. For the others, it’s the music without…
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