Thomas McGuire: Rust
Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal. —Matthew 6:19-21 . Rust ruins metal everywhere. Dad, you would’ve fought … Continue reading
Tony Gloeggler: Larry
Yes, he had already stopped
pirouetting like a clumsy teddy bear every ten steps
or so, stopped reaching down to pull up his socks.
In fact, he hasn’t worn socks in fifteen years.
Laure-Anne Bosselaar: About My Birthday
when the last leaves let go, let go,
have all let go, & it’s almost winter again —
don’t remember my birthday
C.P. Kavafy: Che Fece… Il Gran Rifiuto
For some people the day comes
when they have to declare the great Yes
or the great No.
Joan E. Bauer: 165 Maybery Road
Salka raises money, gathers affidavits
to bring Jews from Europe to safety, finds jobs
for the newcomers, drives them to Farmer’s Market
on Fairfax, a reminder of the Old World.
William Shakespeare: Sonnets 73 & 74
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang.
Jason Baldinger: a people’s history of williamson west virginia
instead we holed up
in a burned-out department store
rechristened junk shop
sifting boxes of ten cent
black and white photos
Alexis Rhone Fancher: Watch your back my dead mother warns
I was in my late teens, off to college up north. I’m hoping you’re rid of M for good, my mother said. But he wanted to move north with me, and begged me to move in with him, that we would go to school together. Me, desperate to be a solo act. The look on his face when I turned him down, unforgettable.
David Adès: I
I the stubbornness that brooks no argument,
I the prayer, I the lover, I the blessing and the curse,
I the question, I the answer,
Joseph Bathanti: Steady Daylight
Today in Heaven,
my father turned 105.
Finally working steady daylight
Michael Simms: Strange Meadowlark
years later jazz, a free communal experience
embodying love, saved me just as poetry saved me
Lawrence Ferlinghetti: I Genitori Perduti
Souls transmigrated maybe
from Hudson’s shrouded shores
across all the silent years—
Which one’s my maybe mafioso father
Miriam Levine: Let’s Go
That out queen
Mark Morris, hefty as he is, dances the role of Queen
Dido to measures of Purcell’s opera and, flashing his
long arms, makes Dido’s suicide lyrical.
Barbara Crooker: Gravy
Hand the wooden baton
to one of your daughters; it’s time for her
to start learning this music, the bubble and
seethe as it plays the score.
