By the light of the Last Days— amber, a bit theatrical, a vacant lot light, snowfall muffling the high-volt hum transformers make zapping snowflakes to kingdom come, somewhere off the interstate outside Romeoville, Illinois— the proof of which can be heard— a ringing noise in the ear louder and louder until it’s a taxi horn…
Donald Hall: Death to the Death of Poetry: Essays, Reviews, Notes, Interviews (Univ. of Michigan), a collection of writings in defense of the vitality of contemporary American poetry.
Pushing aside stiff panties with his stick the old man, stabbing cans, moves closer to the trembling wool coat, gnawed bare in spots, a patched dress, hitched up around her hips. He watches her hand in its private shiver and the furious rocking that lifts her into the secret palace of lost pleasures beyond the…
The smart money spent the summer— and left the poorer relatives agape, and sent the change in ash and oak, postmarked, laughs galore in Smoky Mountains, & seashore where she sold her shells & other things. The genre’s born of envy: If I were dead I’d write you still, and come to you, tapping the…
Would you know a saint if you saw one? Say you’re on the delivery table, legs drawn up For each agonizing push, while everyone else is poised To welcome forth your frightened protégée— When, instead, a smiling light slowly issues out From your dark interior, assembling itself Like a mirage hovering above the linoleum floor—…
I sit on the porch tonight, smoking my last cigarette, savoring it the way a crow at the edge of the highway feeds until the last second, hopping a little dance on the carcass. The trees are stark, the branches hover, ready to sprout in this warm feast of air. I would like to feast…
The father took the children for long walks on Sundays because he imagined they shared his enthusiasm for the flat fields of the Beauce in summer, with the light clouds drifting across a pale sun, the hawthorn hedges flecked with fragile white flowers, and the edges of the wheat stained with red poppies. But the…
for my father 1. Today Today, this moment, speechlessly in pain, He…
—from the Inuit tale The Man Who Was a Mother A man and a woman couldn’t have any children. No one knew whose fault it was. This couple was unhappy and the butt of jokes. The man sucked on his wife’s breasts. The woman cradled her husband in her arms. But pretending about babies wasn’t…
No products in the cart.