Article
Introduction: Postcard from New York
Postcard from New York February 2002 It’s a different city now, this New York, the city my wife and I love (and choose) to live in, a new shorthand can be heard for time and location: “The Event,” “The 11th,” “The Pile.” For weeks after, on the way to rehearsals for a play of mine…
Sons of God
“All this,” said Wayne the plumber, “was written down in the Bible five thousand years ago.” He was out on the deck taking a break from doing angioplasty on the pipes beneath my kitchen sink. Meanwhile, he was giving his assistant, John Pickles, a lesson. “Hey, Wayne,” I yelled from an upstairs window, “you’re wrong…
Inheritance of Waterfalls and Sharks
for my son, Klemente Gilbert-Espada In 1898, with the infantry from Illinois, the boy who would become the poet Sandburg rowed his captain’s Saint Bernard ashore at Guánica, and watched as the captain lobbed cubes of steak at the canine snout. The troops speared mangos with bayonets like many suns thudding with shredded yellow flesh…
Your Borders, Your Rivers, Your Tiny Villages
At two o’clock in the morning, no one is to blame. We’d been watching CNN, one scene of disaster leading to the next, the reporter in front of what might have been a new anthrax outbreak giving way to the military analyst in the studio with new developments in Kabul, when William put his hand…
Julie Orringer and Caroline Finkelstein, Cohen Awards
Cohen Awards Each year, we honor the best short story and poem 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…
The Monsters at the Edge of the World
for my wife, Katherine The film of your brain is a map drawn by conquerors flying the banner of exploration and misnaming all the islands, yet we sail through the clouds swirling in this hemisphere, navigate rivers of silver till we find the white slash circled in red that tells us stroke, hemorrhage, as if…
Kudzu
On that night, years back, we were up until the cardinals started calling. The first one lit out through the leaves before the air went from warm to hot. I remember that the call sounded lonely in the quiet of early morning. But soon, just before it got light, many of them were fussing in…
The Absence of Light
God works in mysterious ways, Father said, but He’s not half as mysterious as your mother. He said, Let there be light. And there was light. I don’t see anything mysterious about that. He did what He said He’d do. Your mother says, Let’s not be late for the movie. Yet she takes so long…