Little Final Sunlight
station in Dover Delaware, mint green house, facing it, the white shade bending in the little final sunlight left. Light within above clock, people, even a head or two. Or here and there, out of time.
Article
The Listener
The town was nameless because it could have been any town one was new to, alone in, and he walked its main street with a hesitant sense of possibility, a sizing up, all the shops in a row, this open door or that. He stopped to look in a window, and, seeing no one but…
The Green Bird
My appointment with the psychologist (Roberta) is at 5:00 p.m. It takes only ten minutes or so to walk there, but I decide to leave the house at 4:17 and take a circuitous route. Vigorous exercise helps mental health, too, says Roberta. Tacoma in November: dark, cold, wet. You notice the trees-laurels and firs, especially….
The World at Dusk
There are those I attempt to describe. The words always fail. One man has a face of winter and only summer words find me. Or worse: the words of spring which trample the winter face. It is not as romantic as a curse. I find my first two names in a cemetery. Every moment life…
Acorns
Last night some acorns fell and woke me as they struck the roof. Each acorn rolled, a die cast down the shakes, to tell my chances in the sun and in the snow to come. What might have been a grief, I didn't go to look for in the night. I closed my eyes to…
Apartheid
My students, pink as Barbie Dolls, Clean as the coins they slip Into arcade games at the mall, Live in tenements of ignorance. Headlines are meant for someone Else's worry, like taxes Or insurance on the Camaro Which Dad sees to. When it comes To Winnies, they don't know Mandela From Pooh. In the film,…
Contributors’ Notes
MASTHEAD Directors DeWitt Henry Peter O'Malley Coordinating Editors for This Issue Madeline DeFrees Tess Gallagher Managing Editor Jennifer Rose Thanks this issue to: Don Lee, Tracey McIntire, Cynthia May, Therese Mageau, Elizabeth Alexander, Randi Schalet, Anne Friedman, Madeleine Beckman, Carol Feingold, Doina Iliescu, Ellen Hinsey, Marcy Hinand, Steve Dykes, Mariette Lippo, Joe Linitz, Melissa Green,…
In Scarecrow’s Garden
Loosely bound and buttoned on a pole, clothed in the gardener's cottons, the scarecrow stretches as if to feign sleepiness, and sparrows spurt from the garden, beyond his sleeves. He swells, and soft green light invades the narrow rib, a space to fit a life in, but the breeze drops. It seems he needs only…
Some Flowers
Your coffin was pine, a simple fact. Gravediggers in overalls brought sturdy shovels, worn with use and we stepped forward one by one: Heft of the handle in my hand. A spadeful of earth. On my last letter to the hospital I printed crazily, please forward. I told myself you might be going home, knew…