Laure-Anne Bosselaar: Stillbirth
I sometimes go months without remembering you.
Some griefs bless us that way, not asking much space.
Walt Whitman: When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d
For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands—and this for his dear sake,
Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul,
There in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and dim.
Peter Makuck: Seniors
mocking with an ache
that comes with leafdrop, woodsmoke,
and those shots of bourbon that ease
not a thing
Danusha Laméris: Reading My Valentine’s Poem to Frank X. Gaspar
I am thirty-two, and in love, again, this time
with a man whose name rolls off my tongue
like water. I’m afraid of hope.
Michael Simms: The Chemistry of Love
Oxytocin and
Dopamine dancing
In the hallways of attachment
Wendy Cope: Flowers
Look, the flowers you nearly bought
Have lasted all this while.
Judith Sanders: Late to Meet You at the Indian Restaurant
So I drove, and listened to the news, about
the demise of democracy and collapse of civilization
head-beams probing the dark like outstretched hands.
Stephen Dobyns: Persephone, Etc.
Wasn’t it beneath this spot the son of Kronos
pursued his inamorata, holding out a handful
of shining seeds?
Ellery Akers: We Have the Power to Pull Back from the Brink
I call fire.
And fire answers with its flaming mouth
and strange whining pronunciation
as it clears the underbrush
Christine Rhein: Alphabetical Order
Assertion by committee:
double-dare ethos.
Fibbed goodwill,
handshakes.
Amy Lowell: The Blue Scarf
Pale, with the blue of high zeniths, shimmered over with silver, brocaded
In smooth, running patterns, a soft stuff, with dark knotted fringes, it lies there,
Warm from a woman’s soft shoulders…
Sharon Fagan McDermott: Orchid Room, Phipps Conservatory
Grandma lived to be ninety-three
and wore the fabric of that tale to a soft sheen
with her retelling. Where does the past lie?
Jason Irwin: Smoke Rising
Back then to see dark clouds of smoke
rising above the housetops meant that God, in his wisdom and mercy,
was still on our side.
Peter Schireson: Good Morning
Across the street, Ginkgo
sway in the breeze
like a gospel choir.
