Robbi Nester: Busker in the Subway
Coins begin to rain into his cigar box,
a few folded bills. Small children seek the deep source
of the sound. An old man with waist-length dreadlocks
puts down his heavy pack and sighs.
Lauren Camp: Sanctuary
That was Sunday. The village. I was a baby sugared
with indulgence. Fat and black-haired. Those years
of his unfolding wallet and the ongoing thorn
of origin.
Dorianne Laux: Spirit Level
I see how my whole life has been a dream,
one she built for me from the ground up,
her daughter, my mother the axe, beautiful
tool with which she shaped me, a house
much like the one she lived in, but smaller
Mike Vargo: Language Is a Virus
A punishment for the arrogance of thinking my mission in life was to explain things to people.
Laure-Anne Bosselaar: Lassitude
the stars barely visible above the oil rigs off the coast,
aglow like phantom ships
Audio: W.S. Merwin reads “In Time”
and started to dance without music
slowly we danced around and around
in circles and after a while we hummed
when the world was about to end
Octavia E. Butler: A Few Rules For Predicting The Future
‘All I did was look around at the problems we’re neglecting now and give them about 30 years to grow into full-fledged disasters.’
Alexis Rhone Fancher: The Girl in the Photo
She’s been damaged. Life’s out of control; there are no good options. The girl in the photo wants to let go, to quit this life and choose another…
Cynthia Atkins: When Harry Met Sally
A light quaked on earth, because when the waitress
gasped and blushed, we gasped and blushed,
sitting in the plush dark aisles to our interiors.
Video: Bruce Springsteen | Streets Of Minneapolis
This is the song heard round the world.
Robert Hayden: Those Winter Sundays
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?
James Crews: The Slightest Kindness
We were walking the icy streets,
talking about the ways our country
has betrayed us again—promises
unkept, laws broken beyond repair.
Alison Hurwitz: On Resilience
In 8th grade English class my son’s assigned
a sonnet, asked to find an image, select
one metaphor that can expand to bind
disparate thoughts together.
Philip Levine: The Poem of Chalk
He knew feldspar,
he knew calcium, oyster shells, he
knew what creatures had given
their spines to become the dust time
pressed into these perfect cones
