Moudi Sbeity: Watching the Tall Burly Man at the Ice Cream Shop Lick His Cone
I watched him walk away from the register,
all rough and tarnished, hard in the heart –
I could tell – even mad in the eyes, lifting the
cone to his slightly cocked head, tongue sticking
out, wiping itself in a swirl along the sugar spire.
Sean Sexton: Heavenward
An orange glow back-lights the sky before dawn
with approaching newness made of blue. The world
still drips from a perfect midafternoon rain arriving
yesterday to carry into dark.
Malcolm Daniel: The photography of Julia Margaret Cameron
In Cameron’s Mountain Nymph, Sweet Liberty, Miss Keene, an arresting model about whom we know nothing but her last name, stares directly at the camera (and, by extension, at the viewer), her hair loose and her eyes open wide. Filling the frame, she seems to step out of the picture.
Video: Shanti Rides Shotgun
On Manhattan’s jam-packed streets, NYC’s most iconic driving instructor prepares students for the road ahead.
Michael Simms: Serenity Park
Out of the chaos of the parrots’ desperate calls had emerged a texture of beautiful sound, and none of them would ever be lonely again.
Edna St. Vincent Millay: ‘She had a horror he would die at night’
She had a horror he would die at night.
And sometimes when the light began to fade
She could not keep from noticing how white
The birches looked and then she would be afraid
Thomas A. Thomas: While hearing the poet
when love was blue water in a green cathedral
under a new blue sky and the water fell from
cliff stone into sun-sparkled air
Carol Moldaw: Arthritis
“Save your hands,” my mother says,
seeing me untwist a jar’s tight cap—
just the way she used to tell me
not to let boys fool around
Charles Harper Webb: Department of Discontent
The officer in charge checks my ID. “Formal
or informal complaint?” she says. When I hesitate,
she says, “Informal’s more relaxed. You speak
more softly, don’t raise your blood pressure,
can wear jeans, no tie, use contractions and slang.