Robert Gibb: Worker, Steel Mill
Photograph by W. Eugene Smith, c. 1955 . Bug-eyed in those glare-filled goggles, He’s gauntleted and cassocked, garbed To be garbed in fire, which forms a lake … Continue reading
Dawn Potter: Respectable Woman
No one could mistake me for a department-store model but I’ve kept my figure— not an inch of overflow, nothing to shock a stare. Express myself remains the … Continue reading
David Huddle: Is Nothing Sacred?
The bunny that dashed across our street just before dawn this morning–a fast moving rabbit shadow that crackled with holiness for two blinks of my eyes. In Bruce Springsteen’s “Growing … Continue reading
Kathleen O’Toole: Among the Martyrs
Jimmy Lee Jackson was 26, on February 18th 1965, when a state trooper slammed him against the cigarette machine in a dark café where he and the other voting rights … Continue reading
Video: Alone
What would it mean to marry someone behind bars? Directed by Garrett Bradley Running time: 12:19 Email subscribers may click on the title of this post to watch the video. … Continue reading
Stephen Dobyns: The Gardener
And he had imagined sitting in the evening
with his friend the Devil watching the small
human creatures frolic in the grass. They would
be like children, good natured and always singing.
When had he realized his mistake?
Video: Vargsamtal/Nowness
. Would you choose to live wild and free as a wolf, or have a job with benefits, like a sled dog? Swedish-born Sven Engholm owns and operates a dogsledding … Continue reading
Sharon Fagan McDermott: What I Won’t Tell Myself
The moon salts the sky with stars and the only sounds in the house are the dog’s breath and the furnace’s belch through old pipes. On this coldest night of … Continue reading
Elizabeth Jacobson: Next to You, Permanence
I wrapped the corpse of a juvenile bull snake I found on the road around a slender branch of a young aspen tree, coiling it into three even loops. The … Continue reading
Louie Skipper: The Work Ethic of the Common Fly
In the work ethic of the common fly the earth remembers who we are, and where. Who fears the voice that is never at rest and always on the … Continue reading
Marco North: The Street of Flowers
Two weeks ago, I spied those splotches of blood against the white concrete, the roses scattered across the sidewalk. I imagined it was a fist fight or a knifing at … Continue reading
Laure-Anne Bosselaar: Counted
In the park — while her mother & another woman hold each other & kiss — the child counts pencils in a box: one, two, four, five, seven. She has already … Continue reading
Jose Padua: From the Belly to the Head
In my immigrant culture
the custom was for children to live at home with
the family, to contribute to that home, and continue
to do so until they had families of their own,
but I never said that, never explained, never
wanted to say my people do things differently
James Wright: Hook
I stood on the street corner
In Minneapolis, lashed
This way and that.
Wind rose from some pit,
Hunting me.
