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….
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,…
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…
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,…
The original intention of editing an issue of Ploughshares was a collection of dramatic verse, either written directly for theatrical performance or adaptable for the stage. There were few submissions. Instead, resolutely lyrical poems came, altering intention. There are many names I would have liked to see here, but the pleasures of discovery of new…
On a dawn walk I startled a great horned owl, wary, near, on a low limb of a tree downhill from me. Those slow wings opened, broad as a man, two men, and he sank fast down into the hillside in blank silence, a wall toppling its whole enormous length that does not touch a…
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…
I There is a place between the shoulder and the neck Where everyone wants to be saved. And another where the leg slices the heavy hip. These are arable fields, for human hands only. You speak my name like you need it And mine for veins Which will ring your own name Like a pick…
You are not yet asleep, your breathing slides deep into the sound of rain, its various sounds: the tap on the tin roof, the slash as it blows across the screen, a swish that washes across the shingle siding, it drums up against the window, the heavy gush from the crotch in the roof then…
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