When the fin of faithlessness appeared I watched it circle, dip, and veer then ride the swells. Where I stood, on shore among the surf-casters’ gear, RVs and 4 x 4’s, I tried to guess where it would rise, sleek bottlenose breaking next, so I might measure the erratic progress that it made beyond the…
for Leslie and Kitty Norris He has no choice: he must leave England and travel, not to Rome, a mistake in his case, but to Colorado where the mountain air and winter sun will clear his lungs. He’ll pack a twig from the plum tree and some gravel from the garden walk. He’ll sing to…
mayo ham & cheese mayonnaise, jambon, fromage lettuce, tomato two slices wheat bread golden delicious apple pack of snack crackers iced tea in the fridge (instant) or if you prefer instant lemonade they’re feeding us too well not that I’m getting worried I’m enjoying camp I think I’ll come back that’s better than misery better…
I am not ashamed to admit that I like being held with my back to her-her hands on my stomach, arms arrowing down my hips, fingers tracing the slightest underside of my jeans. I am not ashamed to admit that the absence of a face, the surprise of not being able to see, to predict…
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 gods in heavy squabble make the poet choose which is greater, poetry or sex Choose poetry, you are rewarded with a winged horse you cannot dismount, choose sex, you are rewarded with sexual fulfillment with a mannequin of Celotex, frigid, stupid, stiff and thin, choose poetry, you are rewarded with wings of your own…
from Citizens Review Then there was the police chief’s daughter, always bad news. Like tonight-another roasting summer night, air conditioners not quite keeping up-she sat alone at the bar, tapping her chipped fingernails against a glass. She took a last drag on the cigarette the fag gave her, a lousy, tasteless, low-tar wimp of a…
MASTHEAD Guest Editor Mary Gordon Editor Don Lee Poetry Editor David Daniel Assistant Editor Susan Conley Assistant Fiction Editor Maryanne O'Hara Founding Editor DeWitt Henry Founding Publisher Peter O'Malley Editorial Assistants: Thomas McNeely, Jessica Olin, Debra DeFord, and Tom Herd. Fiction Readers: Heidi Pitlor, Billie Lydia Porter, Emily Doherty, Michael Rainho, Leah Stewart, Tammy Zambo,…
What would be strange in someone else’s bed, familiar here as the body’s jolt at the edge of sleep—body persistent, solitary, precarious. I watch his right hand float in our bedroom’s midnight, inscribe forms by instinct on the air, arterial, calligraphic figures I’m too literal to follow. I close my book quietly, leave a woman…
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