Laure-Anne Bosselaar: “Breakfast Morning” by Jacques Prévert
He made smoke
Circles in the air
He put the ashes
Into the ashtray
Without speaking to me
Without looking at me
Nina Padolf: In line at the food bank with my roommate a disabled vet in Pittsburgh
It’s our turn, they escort us around
each section as if we’re in prison
Amy Lowell: Dreams in War Time
I dug a grave under an oak-tree.
With infinite care, I stamped my spade
Into the heavy grass.
Robert Okaji: The Continuing
The body attacks itself, realizes the futility
in compensation, as the spirit expands
over the horizon. I am old, and yet…
Pinecones linger. The neighbor’s dog
pees on our shared fence.
Helen Pletts: love lies like a silver thought on still water
and when the light catches up with it, I catch myself
and throw myself into the depths
Barbara Hamby: Ode to Red and Speedy
Who can remember all the selves stuffed into the miraculous
sack of skin?
David Adès: Our Griefs
When they were little and not yet anguish
we nurtured our griefs,
we coddled them,
said there, there, things will get better.
Laure-Anne Bosselaar: Dusk Again
There’s a particular light when fall days die
William Wenthe: Assembly
What moved us, perhaps, was something like
what moves the calling of these robins.
Sophie Cabot Black: Democracy Until
And to set fire before heading on
Is also to say it does not matter
Which part is played
But that it gets played.
Bill Knott: The Closet
I shall find room enough here
By excluding myself; by excluding myself, I’ll grow.
Rachel Hadas: ‘Each bears his own ghosts’
How the classics speak to these days of fear, anger and presidential candidates stalking the land
Michael Simms: A Cowboy in the Chapel of Bones
Where I come from
it’s bad manners to speak of death
except in dead metaphors.
Doralee Brooks: Three Poems
Carmen, the shop assistant, slender and kinetic as a twig in wind,
scrubs my hair. Says how she waxes herself, down there.
