on whose leaves you can write your name— or not, if you prefer to admire the integrity of the smooth green skin that can withstand salt spray and the Caribbean wind. Privateers used them as playing cards, and the penknife of the passionate engraver keeps reminding them Pedro loves Maria, the ovate heart that he…
Acrylic resin paint on canvas The fire, the dusky water-lily edge on the horizon erect, examining the realm of Circe a sea animal flicks to and fro now here, now out of reach. “Come to me,” yearns Circe round red mouth bleeding song like night jasmine “I reveal you to yourself I tell you what…
You claimed as the one worth of your regrettable childhood the knowledge you'd gained to make another's childhood exemplary. You felt yourself quite able to withhold any emotion except love. You were a rod, your son's rod, your practiced calm his confidence, solace, and security. From books you learned carrot and stick, the four-year-old's embracing…
Coming here is like returning to Europe. The cathedral, marooned among the parked cars, dates back to Drake who tried and failed to take the place. Cumberland brought a fleet and stormed the handsome fort: plague caught him there, unclosed his grip. Came the Dutch— these walls withstood them: their masonry is still good. Down…
MASTHEAD Coordinating Editor for This Issue M. L. Rosenthal Executive Director DeWitt Henry Managing Editor / Associate Fiction Editor Don Lee Poetry Editor for This Issue Jennifer Rose Associate Poetry Editor Joyce Peseroff Assistant Editor David Daniel Editorial Assistant Jessica Dineen Founding Publisher Peter O'Malley Staff: Kevin Supples and Margaret Bezucha. Editorial Interns: Sandra McLeod…
Every day the boy marks her progress: at the round window, her round eye, the bluebird that scrambled in and out with grass, or moss, with string, hair, wool, the innermost feathers of her breast. And if he's spotted her in the bush or on the wing, he lifts away the front wall of the…
How many times in this family rain have I wanted a sudden shelter, the phone to ring, a blanket of pines 12 feet above my head and growing up thick 50, 60 feet. No rain then would get through. But the heedless rain comes down. The wish for shelter, confused under this flood of water,…
To celebrate twenty years of Ploughshares is to celebrate the idea of our revolving editorship, a series of guest-edited issues directed and moderated by the magazine's staff, with each issue and guest editor speaking to others in the progress of the series. For this issue, with the assistance of Don Lee, our managing editor/associate fiction…
He was to arrive at San Francisco, a six-year-old boy flying from China alone for twenty hours. We went there to meet him, hoping he still remembered us, since he had not seen us for three years. We waited patiently at the airport, till all passengers came through the customs. Did he miss the plane?…
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